Perhaps because I like saying overrated/underrated.
But also because overrated/underrated is a quick way to provide information. “Forecasting is underrated by the population at large” is much easier to think of than “forecasting is probably rated 4⁄10 by the population at large and should be rated 6/10″
Over/underrated requires about 3 mental queries, “Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks” “Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks?” “Am I gonna have to be clear about what I mean?”
Scoring the current and desired status of something requires about 20 queries “Is 4 fair?” “Is 5 fair” “What axis am I rating on?” “Popularity?” “If I score it a 4 will people think I’m crazy?”...
Like in some sense your right that % forecasts are more useful than “More likely/less likely” and sizes are better than “bigger smaller” but when dealing with intangibles like status I think it’s pretty costly to calculate some status number, so I do the cheaper thing.
Also would you prefer people used over/underrated less or would you prefer the people who use over/underrated spoke less? Because I would guess that some chunk of those 50ish karma are from people who don’t like the vibe rather than some epistemic thing. And if that’s the case, I think we should have a different discussion.
I guess I think that might come from a frustration around jargon or rationalists in general. And I’m pretty happy to try and broaden my answer from over/underrated—just as I would if someone asked me how big a star was and I said “bigger than an elephant”. But it’s worth noting it’s a bandwidth thing and often used because giving exact sizes in status is hard. Perhaps we shouldn’t have numbers and words for it, but we don’t.
I agree that “underrated/overrated” or similar directional commentary is often a better way to convey information. Not least because the directional comment sometimes is information (e.g. there’s a source of systematic error which biases the results) whereas an attempt to estimate a magnitude of the adjustment necessary is just a guess. And using vague verbal qualifiers (x is very large, the error is minimal) instead of a made-up figure much more accurately conveys that something is opinion or methodological critique rather than new data.
Using an actual figure where it exists is obviously good epistemics, but use of guesstimates risks anchoring truth-seekers to your guesses. Setting the expectation that anyone who participates to supply numbers is worse, as it sets a high bar to commentary (really I should be able to say a field is “neglected” without specifying how much funding it deserves and how it should be spent!) and can be used to insulate from criticism. “If you think I’ve inflated my outlying estimate you should tell me exactly how much you think each figure should be so I can attack your lack of evidence instead” seems like a more problematic rhetorical technique than understating just how extreme your enthusiasm for something is in order to help reach consensus.
Also would you prefer people used over/underrated less or would you prefer the people who use over/underrated spoke less? Because I would guess that some chunk of those 50ish karma are from people who don’t like the vibe rather than some epistemic thing. And if that’s the case, I think we should have a different discussion.
I guess I think that might come from a frustration around jargon or rationalists in general
As an outsider (other outside perspectives exist!) I’d say there’s probably more frustration with rationalists/EAs often appearing to like the vibe of artificially precise numerical claims about things which are weakly evidenced or completely subjective...
Reality is concrete but the artistic merit of Buffy or moral weight for livestock isn’t (even if it is an occasionally useful concept for modelling/ranking priorities), and I’m not sure “people should rate forecasting at 8/10” actually conveys any information at all. The illusion of precision is overrated ;-)
Interesting take. I don’t like it.
Perhaps because I like saying overrated/underrated.
But also because overrated/underrated is a quick way to provide information. “Forecasting is underrated by the population at large” is much easier to think of than “forecasting is probably rated 4⁄10 by the population at large and should be rated 6/10″
Over/underrated requires about 3 mental queries, “Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks” “Is it better or worse than my ingroup thinks?” “Am I gonna have to be clear about what I mean?”
Scoring the current and desired status of something requires about 20 queries “Is 4 fair?” “Is 5 fair” “What axis am I rating on?” “Popularity?” “If I score it a 4 will people think I’m crazy?”...
Like in some sense your right that % forecasts are more useful than “More likely/less likely” and sizes are better than “bigger smaller” but when dealing with intangibles like status I think it’s pretty costly to calculate some status number, so I do the cheaper thing.
Also would you prefer people used over/underrated less or would you prefer the people who use over/underrated spoke less? Because I would guess that some chunk of those 50ish karma are from people who don’t like the vibe rather than some epistemic thing. And if that’s the case, I think we should have a different discussion.
I guess I think that might come from a frustration around jargon or rationalists in general. And I’m pretty happy to try and broaden my answer from over/underrated—just as I would if someone asked me how big a star was and I said “bigger than an elephant”. But it’s worth noting it’s a bandwidth thing and often used because giving exact sizes in status is hard. Perhaps we shouldn’t have numbers and words for it, but we don’t.
I agree that “underrated/overrated” or similar directional commentary is often a better way to convey information. Not least because the directional comment sometimes is information (e.g. there’s a source of systematic error which biases the results) whereas an attempt to estimate a magnitude of the adjustment necessary is just a guess. And using vague verbal qualifiers (x is very large, the error is minimal) instead of a made-up figure much more accurately conveys that something is opinion or methodological critique rather than new data.
Using an actual figure where it exists is obviously good epistemics, but use of guesstimates risks anchoring truth-seekers to your guesses. Setting the expectation that anyone who participates to supply numbers is worse, as it sets a high bar to commentary (really I should be able to say a field is “neglected” without specifying how much funding it deserves and how it should be spent!) and can be used to insulate from criticism. “If you think I’ve inflated my outlying estimate you should tell me exactly how much you think each figure should be so I can attack your lack of evidence instead” seems like a more problematic rhetorical technique than understating just how extreme your enthusiasm for something is in order to help reach consensus.
As an outsider (other outside perspectives exist!) I’d say there’s probably more frustration with rationalists/EAs often appearing to like the vibe of artificially precise numerical claims about things which are weakly evidenced or completely subjective...
Reality is concrete but the artistic merit of Buffy or moral weight for livestock isn’t (even if it is an occasionally useful concept for modelling/ranking priorities), and I’m not sure “people should rate forecasting at 8/10” actually conveys any information at all. The illusion of precision is overrated ;-)