In the lead up to the American presidential election, one of the largest and most consequential expressions of public opinion, Ben and Vaden do what they always do and ask: "What does Popper say about this?" The second in the Conjectures and Refutations series, we cover Chapter 17: Public Opinion and Liberal Principles. Largely irrelevant and probably unhelpful, we touch

• A thesis that the far left and right are converging vis-a-vis reactionary politics
• The idea that "truth is manifest", i.e. obvious
• The role of free speech and diversity of opinion
• Political polarization
• Libertarians and their hate of seatbelts

Send us some hate or some love at [email protected].
Chapter excerpt:
The following remarks were designed to provide material for debate at an international conference of liberals (...). My purpose was simply to lay the foundations for a good general discussion. Because I could assume liberal views in my audience I was largely concerned to challenge, rather than endorse, popular assumptions favourable to these views.

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Sick of hearing us shouting about Bayesianism? Well today you're in luck, because this time, someone shouts at us about Bayesianism! Richard Meadows, finance journalist, author, and Ben's secretive podcast paramour, takes us to task. Are we being unfair to the Bayesians? Is Bayesian rationality optimal in theory, and the rest of us are just coping with an uncertain world? Is this why the Bayesian rationalists have so much cultural influence (and money, and fame, and media attention, and ...), and we, ahem, uhhh, don't?

Check out Rich's website, his book Optionality: How to Survive and Thrive in a Volatile World, and his podcast.

We discuss

• The pros of the rationality and EA communities
• Whether Bayesian epistemology contributes to open-mindedness
• The fact that evidence doesn't speak for itself
• The fact that the world doesn't come bundled as discrete chunks of evidence
• Whether Bayesian epistemology would be "optimal" for Laplace's demon
• The difference between truth and certainty
• Vaden's tone issues and why he gets animated about this subject.

References

• Scott's original piece: In continued defense of non-frequentist probabilities
• Scott Alexander's post about rootclaim
• Our previous episode on Scott's piece: #69 - Contra Scott Alexander on Probability
• Rootclaim
• Ben's blogpost You need a theory for that theory
• Cox's theorem
• Aumann's agreement theorem
• Vaden's blogposts mentioned in the episode:
  • Critical Rationalism and Bayesian Epistemology
  • Proving Too Much

Socials

• Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
• Follow Rich at @MeadowsRichard
• Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link
• Help us calibrate our credences and get exclusive bonus content by becoming a patreon subscriber here. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations here.
• Click dem like buttons on youtube

What's your favorite theory that is neither true nor useful? Tell us over at [email protected].

Special Guest: Richard Meadows.

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The final part in a series which has polarized the nation. We tackle -- alongside Bruce Nielson as always -- the remaining part of Scott's FAQ: Political Issues. Can the government get anything right? Has Scott strawmanned the libertarian argument in this section? Is libertarianism an economic theory, a political theory, a metaphysical theory, or a branch of physics? And what do Milton and Ludwig have to say about all this? Warning: we get a little meta with this one...

We discuss

• Is the government effective at doing anything?
• What's the use of thinking counterfactually?
• Is it just market failures all the way down?
• Three kinds of anarcho-capitalists
• The economic calculation problem
• Is an economic theory necessarily political?
• What to make of the claim that austrian economics is like physics
• But wait, isn't it also metaphysics?

References

• Scott's FAQ
• Napolean science funding:
  • Canned food
  • More readings
• Bruce's Theory of Anything Pod and on twitter at @bnielson01
• Vaden's blog posts on Libertarianism:
  • First: Is Austrian Economics the Best Explanation of Economics?
  • Second: Can we predict human behaviour? A discussion with Brett Hall

Quotes

The Argument: Government can’t do anything right. Its forays into every field are tinged in failure. Whether it’s trying to create contradictory “state owned businesses”, funding pet projects that end up over budget and useless, or creating burdensome and ridiculous “consumer protection” rules, its heavy-handed actions are always detrimental and usually embarrassing.
...
The Counterargument: Government sometimes, though by no means always, does things right, and some of its institutions and programs are justifiably considered models of efficiency and human ingenuity. There are various reasons why people are less likely to notice these.
- Scott's FAQ

7.1.1: Okay, fine. But that’s a special case where, given an infinite budget, they were able to accomplish something that private industry had no incentive to try. And to their credit, they did pull it off, but do you have any examples of government succeeding at anything more practical?

Eradicating smallpox and polio globally, and cholera and malaria from their endemic areas in the US. Inventing the computer, mouse, digital camera, and email. Building the information superhighway and the regular superhighway. Delivering clean, practically-free water and cheap on-the-grid electricity across an entire continent. Forcing integration and leading the struggle for civil rights. Setting up the Global Positioning System. Ensuring accurate disaster forecasts for hurricanes, volcanoes, and tidal waves. Zero life-savings-destroying bank runs in eighty years. Inventing nuclear power and the game theory necessary to avoid destroying the world with it.

Socials

• Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
• Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link
• Help us think counterfactually and get exclusive bonus content by becoming a patreon subscriber here. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations here.
• Click dem like buttons on youtube

How much would you like to pay for a fresh gulp of air? Tell us over at [email protected].

Special Guest: Bruce Nielson.

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After four episodes spent fawning over Scott Alexander's "Non-libertarian FAQ", we turn around and attack the good man instead. In this episode we respond to Scott's piece "In Continued Defense of Non-Frequentist Probabilities", and respond to each of his five arguments defending Bayesian probability. Like moths to a flame, we apparently cannot let the probability subject slide, sorry people. But the good news is that before getting there, you get to here about some therapists and pedophiles (therapeutic pedophelia?). What's the probability that Scott changes his mind based on this episode?

We discuss

• Why we're not defending frequentism as a philosophy
• The Bayesian interpretation of probability
• The importance of being explicit about assumptions
• Why it's insane to think that 50% should mean both "equally likely" and "I have no effing idea".
• Why Scott's interpretation of probability is crippling our ability to communicate
• How super are Superforecasters?
• Marginal versus conditional guarantees (this is exactly as boring as it sounds)
• How to pronounce Samotsvety and are they Italian or Eastern European or what?

References

• In Continued Defense Of Non-Frequentist Probabilities
• Article on superforecasting by Gavin Leech and Misha Yugadin
• Essay by Michael Story on superforecasting
• Existential risk tournament: Superforecasters vs AI doomers and Ben's blogpost about it
• The Good Judgment Project

Quotes

During the pandemic, Dominic Cummings said some of the most useful stuff that he received and circulated in the British government was not forecasting. It was qualitative information explaining the general model of what’s going on, which enabled decision-makers to think more clearly about their options for action and the likely consequences. If you’re worried about a new disease outbreak, you don’t just want a percentage probability estimate about future case numbers, you want an explanation of how the virus is likely to spread, what you can do about it, how you can prevent it.
- Michael Story

Is it bad that one term can mean both perfect information (as in 1) and total lack of information (as in 3)? No. This is no different from how we discuss things when we’re not using probability.

Do vaccines cause autism? No. Does drinking monkey blood cause autism? Also no. My evidence on the vaccines question is dozens of excellent studies, conducted so effectively that we’re as sure about this as we are about anything in biology. My evidence on the monkey blood question is that nobody’s ever proposed this and it would be weird if it were true. Still, it’s perfectly fine to say the single-word answer “no” to both of them to describe where I currently stand. If someone wants to know how much evidence/certainty is behind my “no”, they can ask, and I’ll tell them.
- SA, Section 2

Socials

• Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
• Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link
• Help us calibrate our credences and get exclusive bonus content by becoming a patreon subscriber here. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations here.
• Click dem like buttons on youtube

What's your credence in Bayesianism? Tell us over at [email protected].

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Why do logic and mathematics work so well in the world? Why do they seem to describe reality? Why do they they enable us to design circuit boards, build airplanes, and listen remotely to handsome and charming podcast hosts who rarely go off topic?

To answer these questions, we dive into Chapter 9 of Conjectures and Refutations: Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality?.

But before we get to that, we touch on some of the good stuff: evolutionary psychology, cunnilingus, and why Robin is better than Batman.

References:

• Conjectures and Refutations, Chapter 9: Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality? https://books.google.ca/books?id=iXp9AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Ben on Do Explain with Christofer Lovgren
• Debate between Spelke and Pinker
• Very Bad Wizards discussing the paper "Oral Sex as Infidelity detection" (episode, paper).
• Sturgeon's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law#:~:text=Sturgeon%27s%20law%20(or%20Sturgeon%27s%20revelation,science%20fiction%20author%20and%20critic.
• Eugene Wigner's paper The Unreasonable Effective of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.
• Stoic versus Aristotelian logic. Here is a nice discussion of the differences between the two.
• Rob Wiblin's tweet that all probabilities are subjective probabilities (in an otherwise very good thread).
• Buhler's three functions of language: (i) Expressive, (ii) Signaling, and (iii) Descriptive. See the "Organon Model".
• Piece on Brett Weinstein and Ivermectin.
  

Quotes:

“The indescribable world I have in mind is, of course, the world I have ‘in my mind’—the world which most psychologists (except the behaviourists) attempt to describe, somewhat unsuccessfully, with the help of what is nothing but a host of metaphors taken from the languages of physics, of biology, and of social life.”

“In so far as a calculus is applied to reality, it loses the character of a logical calculus and becomes a descriptive theory which may be empirically refutable; and in so far as it is treated as irrefutable, i.e. as a system of logically true formulae, rather than a descriptive scientific theory, it is not applied to reality.”

Send us the most bizarre use of evolutionary psychology you've seen at [email protected].

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