I have often been fascinated watching young children expressing great confidence, even though, from my adult point of view, they have no basis for confidence other than their internal sense (i.e. they don’t understand the domain about which they are speaking in any adult way).
It is also my experience and belief that adults carry this same unwarranted sense of confidence in their opinions. Just to pick one example, 73% of Americans (including 80% of American men) believe they are better than average drivers.
Our culture selects for confidence, especially in men. This leads to overconfidence, especially among successful men. Successful people have often made at least one successful prediction (which may have led to their success), which may have simply been luck, but which reinforces their self-confidence.
I therefore strongly agree that longtermist predictions carry huge uncertainty despite expressions of confidence by those promoting them. I argue that in evaluating effective action, we should lower our expected value of any intervention based on how far in the future we are predicting, with a discount rate of 3.87% annually [/joke].
I have often been fascinated watching young children expressing great confidence, even though, from my adult point of view, they have no basis for confidence other than their internal sense (i.e. they don’t understand the domain about which they are speaking in any adult way).
It is also my experience and belief that adults carry this same unwarranted sense of confidence in their opinions. Just to pick one example, 73% of Americans (including 80% of American men) believe they are better than average drivers.
Our culture selects for confidence, especially in men. This leads to overconfidence, especially among successful men. Successful people have often made at least one successful prediction (which may have led to their success), which may have simply been luck, but which reinforces their self-confidence.
I therefore strongly agree that longtermist predictions carry huge uncertainty despite expressions of confidence by those promoting them. I argue that in evaluating effective action, we should lower our expected value of any intervention based on how far in the future we are predicting, with a discount rate of 3.87% annually [/joke].