Wisdom and Humility

From "The Overstory: A Novel"

...real joy consists of knowing that human wisdom counts less than the shimmer of beeches in a breeze. As certain as weather coming from the west, the things people know for sure will change. There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.

And Yeats "The Second Coming"

...The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Knowledge Requires Testing

The idea of knowing what is true is closely related to the idea of being able to make accurate predictions. This is a topic Nate Silver discusses at length in "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't"

One of the points he makes is that while some predictive sciences get better over time, others don't. He concludes that to get better at prediction, we need to make lots of predictions that we then test against what actually happens.

In my own life, I started writing computer code about 40 years ago, and I notice that I still make the same mistakes and typos I did when I was in high school. What saves me now is that we have much better testing facilities and I've been able to discipline myself to use them. I still make mistakes, but I design processes specifically to expose the weaknesses in my code.

If we want to have an accurate picture of the world -- a shared view of reality that we can use to make decisions about society -- we have to get used to asking those questions and seeking answers that are based on something other than depth of feeling.

Being a Level 2 Skeptic

Yesterday I noted that I have two rules of thumb for accepting something as true. The first is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The second is a milder form of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

In fact, whenever a belief confirms my priors or just happens to come out the way I want it to, I try to raise my skepticism shields. It can be hard to notice when I am tempted to accept a belief too quickly because I already agree with its implications, but I try.

I find this sort of skepticism really hard to maintain. When I notice I'm accepting an idea without proper reflection I do okay, but I suspect a lot of things slip by my defenses. This is just one of the reasons I value having reasonable friends with divergent political beliefs -- even if we'll never agree, they often form a bulwark against brainwashing myself.

Being a skeptic

On Facebook, a friend posed the question "how do I know my information is correct...?" This is a crucial question, one that deserves careful thought. Without downplaying the role of careful research and formal skills in evaluating arguments and fallacies, I have a couple of rules of thumb. The first of these is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

For instance, the claims of quantum mechanics are quite extraordinary. If it were not for the fact that its predictions are so precise and reproducible, I'm confident we'd see greater scepticism among physicists. On the other hand, most of us have been tempted at one point or another by some sort of conspiracy theory. I certainly have. How should we proceed?

Of course, conspiracies do happen. But we should require extraordinary evidence before we grant creedence to their sensational claims. Today's allegations of massively rigged elections or human-trafficking pedophile rings among the Democratic political elite simply do not have that sort of extraordinary evidence. Unless such irrefutable evidence emerges, we should reject them and move on.

Ranked Choice Voting

 WBUR or WGBH radio ran a good segment on ranked choice voting yesterday. I was disappointed when the MA ballot initiative to implement RCV failed in November, so I'll spend a minute or two today on the topic.

In RCV, the goal is to find a candidate that is supported by a majority of voters, meaning more than 50%, not simply a plurality. The way it does this is to allow each voter to rank their choices. If a majority is reached on the first count, then the vote is done. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and those votes are reassigned to their second choice. This continues until a candidate with majority support is found.

In practice, this has two effects. First, since it increases the reward for speaking to a broad audience, incivility and extremism are punished. Second, if the two-party system is putting up candidates that do not represent their constituencies well, it gives a potential 3rd party viable access to the electorate. Hopefully we'll get another chance - both those outcomes seem worthwhile to me.

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

Ranked Choice Voting vs The Establishment