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Cross-posted from my Substack.
Epistemic status: I’ve puzzled over this for a long time but I’m not sure I came to the right answers. I'm sharing this partly because it might help others work on resource allocation, but mostly because some smarter reader might tell me how to do it better.
TL;DR:
* I he...
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With the AI windfall, mental health may be taken increasingly seriously by mainstream EA. There’s increasingly room to explore the cause area and answer some of the biggest uncertainties; at the same time, costs of the most effective interventions are continuing to fall. StrongMinds is now treating for ~$35, about a third of GiveWell’s best guess from a few years ago, and is expected to...
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I'd like to compile the inner-monologue responses people use to correct their own over- and under-confidence, both in forecasting and in judging one's own abilities, job prospects, etc.
Accuracy and balance are always ideal, but I'm interested in how people to respond to thoughts that casually prop up, which are suspicious of over- or under-confidence. Examples might be...
Responses to underconfident thoughts:
"Sure, there's only a 10% chance of getting that job, but it's not a lottery. They'll pick the best person for the job."
"Sure, there's only a 10% chance for me, but the odds are just as low for everybody else, so that's no reason not to at least go for it."
"I'm still pretty uncertain about X future event, but I've spent a good amount of time thinking deliberately about it. No such thing as perfect certainty."
Responses to overconfident thoughts:
"What are the odds everybody else going for that job also thinks they're a shoe-in?"
"Even a 3% chance of something really bad is worth a lot of attention. Don't bet the farm."
"Remember Thomas Edison and his lightbulb? You'd do well to expect a few more failures yet."
These aren't for those situations that call for intellectual rigor, just casual course-corrections. Even still, critiques are welcome. If there's already something out there that compiles correctional one-liners like this, I'd love to see it. Or, if you're interested in seeing a larger post on this, let me know of that too!