AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Are You Over Confident?
People tend to use ambiguity in a way that makes them look good. People report themselves being better than 71 out of a hundred people at lifting ten pounds. Marithons, too, are appropriately confident. We comet people who are under conventd. But there still were quite a few people under confidence.
We’ll run through several diverse examples, and how to actually work out the changing probabilities as you update. But that’s only a fraction of the conversation. We also discuss:
* How could we generate 20-30 new happy thoughts a day? What would that do to our welfare?
* What do people actually value? How do EAs differ from non EAs?
* Why should we care about the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values?
* Would hedonic utilitarians really want to hook themselves up to happiness machines?
* What types of activities are people generally under-confident about? Why?
* When should you give a lot of weight to your prior belief?
* When should we trust common sense?
* Does power posing have any effect?
* Are resumes worthless?
* Did Trump explicitly collude with Russia? What are the odds of him getting re-elected?
* What’s the probability that China and the US go to War in the 21st century?
* How should we treat claims of expertise on diets?
* Why were Spencer’s friends suspicious of Theranos for years?
* How should we think about the placebo effect?
* Does a shift towards rationality typically cause alienation from family and friends? How do you deal with that?
Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.
The 80,000 Hours podcast is produced by Keiran Harris.
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode