Hacker News Reader

Comment by akvadrako | Hacker News Reader

I somewhat agree with you, but I don't think you're giving these intuitions enough credit. Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals. Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.

Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.

View on HN

>> Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals.

If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an entirely different situation.

>> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.

Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric, one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.

Yeah, that statement seemed odd to me as well. I've often heard of the halo effect as a description of something that happens unconsciously, not something we should actively strive towards.

I didn't read it as "we should trust people based on looks", but more as "we DO trust people based on looks" (I assume the "empirical evidence" refers to evidence of this being hardwired into us, not to evidence of it being useful).

I meant that the existence of the effect means it was selected as beneficial. If we want to override this response we should use our higher-level reasoning to (1) understand why it works that way (2) show that we can do better.

The burden of proof is on those proposing a new system. I doubt it’s as easy as many rationalists assume.

darkerside pointed out a great rational benefit of trusting emotional people [1]. What would be the benefit of trusting better-looking people?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17668937

... not necessarily.

The existence of the effect really means that it wasn't selected against.

Sounds right; maybe it's a side-effect of something else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com