I see how this could be misread. I’ll reformulate the statement; “If our small, non-representative group comes to a conclusion, we should wonder, given base rates about correctness in general and the outside view, about which failure modes have affected similar small groups in the past, and consider if they apply, and how we might be wrong or misguided.”
So yes, errors are common to all groups, and being a minority isn’t a indicator of truth, which I mistakenly implied. But the way in which groups are wrong is influenced by group-level reasoning fallacies and biases, which are a product of both individual fallacies and characteristics of the group. That’s why I think that investigating how previous similar groups failed seems like a particularly useful way to identify relevant failure modes.
I see how this could be misread. I’ll reformulate the statement;
“If our small, non-representative group comes to a conclusion, we should wonder, given base rates about correctness in general and the outside view, about which failure modes have affected similar small groups in the past, and consider if they apply, and how we might be wrong or misguided.”
So yes, errors are common to all groups, and being a minority isn’t a indicator of truth, which I mistakenly implied. But the way in which groups are wrong is influenced by group-level reasoning fallacies and biases, which are a product of both individual fallacies and characteristics of the group. That’s why I think that investigating how previous similar groups failed seems like a particularly useful way to identify relevant failure modes.
yes I agree with that.