Well said! Let me add a thought. I have some friends with the long-term track records that you describe, and if one of them were to act in a way that seems out-of-character, I would seek to speak with them privately and ask if all is well. This is something that I have done, more than once, and nearly always, my friends are grateful that I care enough to ask, and that I know them well enough to recognize that their action - whatever it may have been - was not characteristic of them.
People can change - sometimes profoundly and abruptly. If unbeknownst to you, Robin were to pick up a bad drug habit then you would not want to wait for another 25 years to adjust the polarity of your trust accordingly. Maybe a better function than simple "sum of everything" would weigh recent events more strongly, and especially a series of recent events that depart from historical trends.
A nice post, about the weighing of a single action against a fuller sense of character.
You deal primarily with not letting a bad action sway the estimation of a good record of conduct. You don't so much treat the inverse case.
Adam Smith said stuff about the weighing of a single action against track record or character. A lengthy quotation follows:
"[T]he action which proceeds from an occasional fit of generosity is undoubtedly a generous action, but the man who performs it is not necessarily a generous person, because it may be the single action of the kind which he ever performed. The motive and disposition of heart from which this action was performed may have been quite just and proper; but as this happy mood seems to have been the effect rather of accidental humour than of any thing steady or permanent in the character, it can reflect no great honour on the performer. When we denominate a character generous or charitable, or virtuous in any respect, we mean to signify that the disposition expressed by each of those appellations is the usual and customary disposition of the person. But single actions of any kind, how proper and suitable soever, are of little consequence to shew that this is the case. If a single action was sufficient to stamp the character of any virtue upon the person who performed it, the most worthless of mankind might lay claim to all the virtues; since there is no man who has not, upon some occasions, acted with prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. But though single actions, how laudable soever, reflect very little praise upon the person who performs them, a single vicious action, performed by one whose conduct is usually very regular, greatly diminishes, and sometimes destroys altogether, our opinion of his virtue. A single action of this kind sufficiently shews that his habits are not perfect, and that he is less to be depended upon than, from the usual train of his behaviour, we might have been apt to imagine."
"People that have long term track records, as he depicts, RARELY go completely sideways like this."
Agreed! But rarely ≠ never. It does happen, and (trust me) the costs of being slow to adjust to a new regime can be very large! If you had been flipping a coin every day for the past 15 years and it always came up heads every time, and then all of sudden one day it came up tails and then continued coming up only tails - would it take you an additional 15 years to finally stop betting on heads?
It seems like a track record ought to include how many people have found someone trustworthy, decent, and honest. In my lifelong experience men like this, whether conservative or liberal, are trusted and loved by many women friends. Based on the comments on this blog, I am guessing the men here have very few women friends. In fact, it seems like hardly any women post here. I'd take that as a major red flag when it comes to self-character assessment.
Well said! Let me add a thought. I have some friends with the long-term track records that you describe, and if one of them were to act in a way that seems out-of-character, I would seek to speak with them privately and ask if all is well. This is something that I have done, more than once, and nearly always, my friends are grateful that I care enough to ask, and that I know them well enough to recognize that their action - whatever it may have been - was not characteristic of them.
People can change - sometimes profoundly and abruptly. If unbeknownst to you, Robin were to pick up a bad drug habit then you would not want to wait for another 25 years to adjust the polarity of your trust accordingly. Maybe a better function than simple "sum of everything" would weigh recent events more strongly, and especially a series of recent events that depart from historical trends.
If in the course of a long life you can count on one hand the friends that you could rely on in dire straits, then you've accomplished something.
A nice post, about the weighing of a single action against a fuller sense of character.
You deal primarily with not letting a bad action sway the estimation of a good record of conduct. You don't so much treat the inverse case.
Adam Smith said stuff about the weighing of a single action against track record or character. A lengthy quotation follows:
"[T]he action which proceeds from an occasional fit of generosity is undoubtedly a generous action, but the man who performs it is not necessarily a generous person, because it may be the single action of the kind which he ever performed. The motive and disposition of heart from which this action was performed may have been quite just and proper; but as this happy mood seems to have been the effect rather of accidental humour than of any thing steady or permanent in the character, it can reflect no great honour on the performer. When we denominate a character generous or charitable, or virtuous in any respect, we mean to signify that the disposition expressed by each of those appellations is the usual and customary disposition of the person. But single actions of any kind, how proper and suitable soever, are of little consequence to shew that this is the case. If a single action was sufficient to stamp the character of any virtue upon the person who performed it, the most worthless of mankind might lay claim to all the virtues; since there is no man who has not, upon some occasions, acted with prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. But though single actions, how laudable soever, reflect very little praise upon the person who performs them, a single vicious action, performed by one whose conduct is usually very regular, greatly diminishes, and sometimes destroys altogether, our opinion of his virtue. A single action of this kind sufficiently shews that his habits are not perfect, and that he is less to be depended upon than, from the usual train of his behaviour, we might have been apt to imagine."
From The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/smith-the-theory-of-moral-sentiments-and-on-the-origins-of-languages-stewart-ed
"People that have long term track records, as he depicts, RARELY go completely sideways like this."
Agreed! But rarely ≠ never. It does happen, and (trust me) the costs of being slow to adjust to a new regime can be very large! If you had been flipping a coin every day for the past 15 years and it always came up heads every time, and then all of sudden one day it came up tails and then continued coming up only tails - would it take you an additional 15 years to finally stop betting on heads?
I completely agree with your Bayesian approach of updating from priors rather than ignoring them.
And even those people who seem to be acting malevolently may just be careless or stupid a la Hanlon's Razor.
It seems like a track record ought to include how many people have found someone trustworthy, decent, and honest. In my lifelong experience men like this, whether conservative or liberal, are trusted and loved by many women friends. Based on the comments on this blog, I am guessing the men here have very few women friends. In fact, it seems like hardly any women post here. I'd take that as a major red flag when it comes to self-character assessment.