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Boris's avatar

What about expressing not just your degree of belief in a claim but also your source(s). If you say "I didn't know what to think but authority X said he was pretty sure" will then be passed down as "I didn't know but my friend said he heard authority X said he was pretty sure" ... soon enough you have a chain of "a friend of a friend of a friend said that he heard ..." thereby undermining the extent to which the person who hears it updates their belief.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Yeah, I agree that interpreting AAT as anything like "rational people should always agree with one another" is indicative of serious naivete, and the other things you mention are certainly failure modes for people who call themselves Bayesians. I remain unconvinced that using the term is actually a sign of ignorance or foolishness, but we probably aren't going to be able to resolve that one.

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