This week’s topic will be “interestingly wrong ideas”, which means “ideas you now regard as wrong, but which you benefited in some way from learning about”. Here is an example from the LessWrong site.
To further stimulate your thinking, here are other examples I have from my own life.
1) An article by Douglas Hofstadter (of Godel, Escher, Bach fame) equated intelligence with the ability to “turn several knobs of variability” in seeking a good solution. That struck me as wrong, since, by the time you’ve gotten the problem to that point, most of the work of intelligence is already done: when judging a system for a general intelligence, I think it’s more important it be able to go into a chaotic space and identify what “knobs” can be turned at all. However, this clarified my thinking on what is vs isn’t important in building intelligent systems by providing a contrasting view.
2) The idea that, in the context of charity, you don’t need to assume utility is diminishing, because saving 2x lives really is twice as good as saving x lives, which came up a lot in the context of the FTX collapse. This turns out to lead to over-aggressive decisions that eventually bankrupt you, even when thinking about doing good for others. See also this takedown of the idea, which explains the Kelly Criterion.
I hope the above evokes examples from your own life! To find more controversial takes, you’ll just have to come to the meetup.
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The meetup is at Central Market, 4001 N. Lamar, in the cafe area. Look for the LW and SSC signs. People start arriving at 1:30 pm, and the main activity will begin at 2:30 pm. Please follow in-store signs and guidance.