Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
If almost all x's are y's and almost no z's are y's you would need to subject x's to a lot more scrutiny than z's before coming to the conclusion that an x is as unlikely to be a y as a z.
I don't think nominees to deputy director of OMB are a random sample of x's, so even accepting almost all x's are y's, I don't think we get enough to assume they are a y. I also think people are naturally biased to think of religious groups that hold weird and unlikely beliefs that they are almost all y's and so the prior that they are y generally shouldn't be too much higher than the probability of the total population that it is y without
scientific objective evidence.
Also, as I've stated, I don't mind extra scrutiny of nominees on the basis of religious beliefs. The principle of political offices being open to all is important enough to justify the extra time and effort required to do this scrutiny. If we don't have the resources to do this scrutiny, then we should err on the side of religious freedom as that is more important than policy bias or incompetence.
I think one disagreement between us is that you envision this as picking the best nominee, and so using almost all x's are y's as a useful heuristic, whereas I am viewing it as a veto point on a decision made by someone else. I don't think Sanders has any obligation to pick an exclusivist Christian for public office if he becomes President. In this case though, he is more like a filter, distinguishing between the acceptable and the unacceptable of a bad (from his viewpoint) bunch of nominees.
Last edited by Original Position; 07-11-2017 at 09:39 PM.
Reason: accuracy