[yummyfajitas]

Blfr is right, I'm taking utilitarianism as my morality. Specifically, I believe networking with a developer (regardless of gender) is moral, and networking with a recruiter is useless. What morality do you take?

Secondly, I didn't make any assumption that the utility is all mine. The 1 utilon can be split between both parties in some arbitrary manner, it doesn't change the result.

Third, you are correct that I my constraint may not be #recruiters + #developers = 100. It might be alpha x #recruiters + #developers = 100 for alpha < 1. That doesn't change the optimal course of action - my best bet is always to minimize time I spend with recruiters.

Now if you think my model doesn't work, present a better one. But if you are making a fundamentally moral and non-utilitarian point ("networking with lady developers is intrinsically good no matter how many puppies get killed!!!!!"), make that point and don't waste time on positive claims if the truth of the positive claims is irrelevant anyway.

Also, you seem to wildly misunderstand what an appeal to authority is. An appeal to authority would be "I asked Eliezer Yudkowsky and he said I was right." Writing down a simple mathematical model is not remotely an appeal to authority, that's just careful reasoning.

[beat]

Applying a pretense of mathematical rigor is an appeal to authority - the timeless purity of mathematical truth. there are countless historic examples of false rigor to justify immoral behavior as moral - it's the heart of pseudoscience.

I am flatly making a non-utilitarian argument for the morality of not making assumptions. That doesn't mean, however, that a rigorous application of utilitarian morality would not come to the same conclusions. I've made good arguments that your utilitarian equation is inadequate, and will arrive at false conclusions. You can think about those shortcomings, or argue that they aren't (as you did with your third point here), or you can write my argument off as mushy do-gooding because it's not "utilitarian".

Ignoring my criticism because it's not intrinsically utilitarian would be utilitarian. It would not, however, be rigorous.

Utilitarianism without rigor breaks down, almost inevitably. See the problem?

[yummyfajitas]

Math is not an authority. By this logic, all arguments based on reason are an appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is when you appeal to a human who is highly likely to be correct, but who's reasoning is unavailable for examination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Since I presented every step of my argument, and you examined it, it is by definition not an argument by authority. It's simply an argument.

If you want to make a rigorous utilitarian case, do it. Simply pointing out some (non-)problems with the model I presented is not the same thing. All you are doing is arguing that there is more uncertainty than I believed, and then making an unjustified assumption that the uncertainty somehow supports your case.

Also, I didn't "ignore" your moral argument. I specifically asked you to make it - "What morality do you take?"

[beat]

Okay, I'll give you that one. Not an appeal to authority - just a weak argument. Again, I'm saying that utilitarian morality requires rigor in order to be valid, or it risks putting the approving stamps of both morality and reason on false conclusions. There are some serious rigor problems in your original argument.

Beyond that, I do question utilitarian morality, for exactly these reasons. If it were software, it'd be a code smell. It's very easy to turn into justification for all sorts of foul things, and the track record of utilitarian morality is very ugly - like millions of dead ugly. It sure sounds good, especially if you're smart and used to being right on logical issues that don't involve squishy emotions. But it's a dangerous path.

[yummyfajitas]

Again, you have yet to identify a single problem that lack of "rigor" caused. I'm aware all models are incomplete. On the other hand, swooping in, declaring a model flawed without actually identifying a single problem, and alluding to some unspecified alternate morality is a little silly.

I also have no idea where you get "millions of dead ugly" applied to utilitarianism. I also don't get why you think "squishy emotions" like tribalism, desire to affiliate with high status people, or envy of others will somehow save us.

Maybe if you actually wrote down a model I'd be able to understand what you are trying to claim.

[beat]

Utilitarian morality fueled Leninism and Stalinism. Surely, you recognize the damage. It was also popular in the eugenics movement.

I've already alluded to problems with your model - for example, the idea that equal resources are given to good and bad connections. Another problem is the idea that all benefit equally from connections, when it's obvious that the resource-starved benefit more than the resource-rich. Your model is deliberately starving valuable connections (female engineers). It's also reducing the quality of interactions, adding unnecessary noise to the system in the form of distrust. There are many, many shortcomings with it.

Now, you could just try to keep adjusting your theory to conform to reality, making it increasingly elaborate. Or, you could do the engineer's approach and find a solution that works far better, even if it isn't as pretty.

[yummyfajitas]

equal resources are given to good and bad

I already showed a simple extension incorporating this that yields the same result. You are still best served by focusing your attentions on folks who are most likely to not be a recruiter, the delta will simply be lower.

If you want to apply some diminishing marginal returns theory to connections, you'll get a concave optimization problem. You'll still need to multiply the derivatives by 1-P(recruiter), skewing your networking efforts towards men (though not 100% towards men anymore).

The model is, indeed, deliberately starving anyone deemed more likely to be a recruiter. That's the whole point.

Or, you could do the engineer's approach and find a solution that works far better...

You have not even begun to show this.

I strongly suggest you try to cook up any toy model where ignoring base rates helps. I'm dead certain you'll fail (there are theorems), but you'll learn a bit about decision theory in the process.