NaClhv

(This is a work in progress, and it may take a while. Come back when it's done.)

How do we make good decisions? This is arguably the most important question that anyone can answer. And while a perfect decision-making process is probably impossible to specify, maybe we can outline a good-enough version. It would go something like this: we explore our options, gather and process the information, then choose and act out the decision. But that's probably still too abstract to be useful.

So let's narrow our focus, to just the "information" portion of that process. Now, information comes in two flavors: it is either continuous, like the weight of a cat, or categorical, like whether it's alive or dead. In particular, such either/or categorical information of just two states is also said to be a binary. It has a special place in decision making, in that all decisions in the end turn out to be binary decisions. You either do, or do not. There is no try.

At this point, we can be quite pedantic about this classification system. Are there other ways to represent information? Can one type of information be used to represent the other? But again, I want to avoid being overly abstract here. So let us narrow down still further: the goal of this post is to focus on a specific kind of error in decision making - that of taking some continuous information and pigeonholing it as a binary.

using the categorical or binary class for an information, when it is more

information, when a continua

exactly what kind of information should be represented in what way, or whether we can really

Even this distinction may be too abstract

At this point, we can be quite pedantic about about

What is my overall thesis?

What is my overall thesis?

Make it VERY short?

Yes.

to one step in this process - that of gathering and processing information. But that's still to big of a topic for a single post. So let's narrow this down further

The general decision making process.

Binary/continuous

We'll focus on just one way to screw up here, that of mistaking continuous for binary.

What is my overall thesis?

Make it VERY short?

Decisions are binary

Decisions require information, which are continuous

Keep it short?

The correctness of a decision is binary, but the wrongness is continuous. There is only one (or a very small fixed set) of "best" decisions, whereas the wrongness can be irrelevant to catastrophic.

The decision itself is binary, but the alternatives are often continuous.

Information is often best collected on a continuous manner, but this is, in a pretty deep sense, an admission of ignorance.

But everything is expensive, and often times shortcuts are necessary. You have to respect that.

Mixing this inappropriately generally leads to bad results.

When binary is right

When binary is wrong

Always towards clearer picture.

In the end, do or do not. Right or wrong. There is only one right answer.

But there are a continuum of decisions to make.

The decision-making process requires full calculations. But not all calculations can be full.

Measure what you can, and make measurable what you can't.

In addition, make finer shades whenever possible.

Don't do Lazy binaries, or out of judgement

Yes, you should hide under your desk for a nuke

Yes, ordering a diet coke helps after ordering a big fast food meal

General "falling off the wagon"

"did you know the nazis were bad? That's why you should be communist!"

Yes, setting arbitrary cutoff for qualifications are bad (e.g. for dating). Even non-arbitrary cutoffs can be bad.

You're dead or alive. You're pregnant or not.

Even these binaries break down into continua, but even those continua break down into binaries.

"statistical significance" is often oversold. So is "trust the science".

Yes, laws are not absolute

Laws mediated through many layers

Laws to account for random chance, etc.

Games like chess or Go, and a good or multipurpose move.

"if 100 guilty man go free.." etc.

"let justice be done though the heavens fall"

Lots of errors in politics: "you'll waste your vote", "you have to vote: more voter participation", "if A then B then C..."

Gender binaries.

"If you break one law, you're a lawbreaker"

"if you're not for us, then you're against us"

"if you're not against us, then you may be for us"

Go directly into "why laws are not absolute"?