Following Sean here I’ll also describe my motivation for taking the bet.
After Sean suggested the bet, I felt as if I had to take him up on it for group epistemic benefit; my hand was forced. Firstly, I wanted to get people to take the nCOV seriously and to think thoroughly about it (for the present case and for modelling possible future pandemics) - from an inside view model perspective the numbers I was getting are quite worrisome. I felt that if I didn’t take him up on the bet people wouldn’t take the issue as seriously, nor take explicitly modeling things themselves as seriously either. I was trying to socially counter what sometimes feels like a learned helplessness people have with respect to analyzing things or solving problems. Also, the EA community is especially clear thinking and I think a place like the EA forum is a good medium for problem solving around things like nCOV.
Secondly, I generally think that holding people in some sense accountable for their belief statements is a good thing (up to some caveats); it improves the collective epistemic process. In general I prefer exchanging detailed models in discussion rather than vague intuitions mediated by a bet but exchanging intuitions is useful. I also generally would rather make bets about things that are less grim and wouldn’t have suggested this bet myself, but I do think that it is important that we do make predictions about things that matter and some of those things are rather grim. In grim bets though we should definitely pay attention to how something might appear to parts of the community and make more clear what the intent and motivation behind the bet is.
Third, I wished to bring more attention and support to the issue in the hope that it causes people to take sensible personal precautions and that perhaps some of them can influence how things progress. I do not entirely know who reads this and some of them may have influence, expertise, or cleverness they can contribute.
Following Sean here I’ll also describe my motivation for taking the bet.
After Sean suggested the bet, I felt as if I had to take him up on it for group epistemic benefit; my hand was forced. Firstly, I wanted to get people to take the nCOV seriously and to think thoroughly about it (for the present case and for modelling possible future pandemics) - from an inside view model perspective the numbers I was getting are quite worrisome. I felt that if I didn’t take him up on the bet people wouldn’t take the issue as seriously, nor take explicitly modeling things themselves as seriously either. I was trying to socially counter what sometimes feels like a learned helplessness people have with respect to analyzing things or solving problems. Also, the EA community is especially clear thinking and I think a place like the EA forum is a good medium for problem solving around things like nCOV.
Secondly, I generally think that holding people in some sense accountable for their belief statements is a good thing (up to some caveats); it improves the collective epistemic process. In general I prefer exchanging detailed models in discussion rather than vague intuitions mediated by a bet but exchanging intuitions is useful. I also generally would rather make bets about things that are less grim and wouldn’t have suggested this bet myself, but I do think that it is important that we do make predictions about things that matter and some of those things are rather grim. In grim bets though we should definitely pay attention to how something might appear to parts of the community and make more clear what the intent and motivation behind the bet is.
Third, I wished to bring more attention and support to the issue in the hope that it causes people to take sensible personal precautions and that perhaps some of them can influence how things progress. I do not entirely know who reads this and some of them may have influence, expertise, or cleverness they can contribute.