Hmm, though I agree with the idea that people tend to be overconfident, the critique of this style of reasoning is exactly that it leads to overconfidence. I think the argument “people tend to be underconfident, not overconfident” does not seem to bear a lot on the truth of this critique.
(e.g. underconfidence is having believes that tend towards the middling ranges, overconfidence is having extreme beliefs. Eliezer argues that this style of reasoning leads one to assign extremely low probabilities to events, which should be classified as overconfident)
But point 3 relies on underconfident estimates of the individual factors.
I’m not sure that addresses Buck’s point. I just don’t think you can reduce this to “people tend to be overconfident”, even if it’s a conclusion in a limited domain.
Hmm, though I agree with the idea that people tend to be overconfident, the critique of this style of reasoning is exactly that it leads to overconfidence. I think the argument “people tend to be underconfident, not overconfident” does not seem to bear a lot on the truth of this critique.
(e.g. underconfidence is having believes that tend towards the middling ranges, overconfidence is having extreme beliefs. Eliezer argues that this style of reasoning leads one to assign extremely low probabilities to events, which should be classified as overconfident)
But point 3 relies on underconfident estimates of the individual factors.
I’m not sure that addresses Buck’s point. I just don’t think you can reduce this to “people tend to be overconfident”, even if it’s a conclusion in a limited domain.