Genesis

2020 update

In the simplest of words, this blog is about me trying to understand what is good and what is true, and counting how many times I change my mind along the way.

Bayesian Fox is a reference to two things: Bayes' Theorem and Philip Tetlock's superforecasters.

I'm mostly interested in understanding human behavior, including, and perhaps especially, my own.

I get a lot of my inspiration from Scott Alexander. He believed in the Principle of Charity, writing:

"Charity is ... to assume that if you don’t understand how someone could possibly believe something as stupid as they do, that this is more likely a failure of understanding on your part than a failure of reason on theirs."

I believe in charity. I also believe in the quote by Richard Feynman:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool."

Finally, I am inspired by the Thomas Sowell quote, "There are no solutions. Only tradeoffs."

I hope this blog is a place where I can come to better understand others and avoid fooling myself. And I hope to always consider the tradeoffs. 

I have a particular interest in policy, partisanship, tribalism, and psychology.