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Comment by mhartl | Hacker News Reader

People are oddly consistent. Liars usually tell lies. Cheaters cheat whenever it suits them.

This not only isn't true, it's famously false. Psychologists call it the "fundamental attribution error". It may be counter-intuitive, but lying, cheating, and virtually all other behaviors, rather than being consequences of consistent personality traits, are in most cases highly contextual.

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There is such a thing as personal variance, you know. The fundamental attribution error kicks in when you're trying to judge by single events. If you observe someone for a year, it's a lot more reasonable to expect them to be much the same next year. I would agree with the statement "people are oddly consistent", it's just that it's not so easy to judge from single events, and when we do judge we're likely to miss consistent background causes or consistent reactions, and think in terms of consistent personal attributes.

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I meet someone who actually improves over time in any visible way. I don't go around expecting it.

In pictures ( e.g. http://tinyurl.com/6dnntv ) you seem far too rotundily enhanced to be one who practises caloric restriction, yet this seems a much more likely way to extend both your life and useful life than cryonics, which you heartily recommend. How come?

(A quick search on this finds no writing of yours addressing this matter).

(Not at all on topic, I know).

You always say stuff like this, Eliezer. :-)

I would agree with the statement "people are oddly consistent"

I agree, too, for sufficient values of "consistent". It's just that when this statement is followed by "Cheaters cheat whenever it suits them" it smacks of the FAE.

I didn't know that. I had assumed that it was true. Maybe it's a matter of specifying exactly what constitutes the "context." Perhaps something like, "people who cheat at board games usually cheat at board games but don't necessarily cheat on their taxes."

I don't know too much about this, but a quick check of the psychological wiki http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_err... implies something different:

It says that person A tends to attribute person B's behaviors to a fundamental disposition rather than the context of the situation. That different from saying person B chooses a behavior and will do so in most similar circumstances. For example, a person who believes it's ok to lie to obtain a business advantage will do so repeatedly.

Regardless of the cause: whether behavioral choices are a result of a person's essence or a person's circumstance, it's prudent to take John Edward Emerich Dalberg, Lord Acton's advice to "judge talent at its best and character at its worst."

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&...

The rest is also fairly bland and potentially false. All in all, not a great article.

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