5 ms·
> several centuries ago > tens of thousands of years ago This appears to be blatantly moving the goal posts. > those first 5% of people who ever lived repres
by codys 11y ago
> several centuries ago
> tens of thousands of years ago
This appears to be blatantly moving the goal posts.
> those first 5% of people who ever lived represent the 5% of the time we expect to be wrong
This implies that for only 5% of human history the calculation would be wrong, and the reset of the time it would be 100% correct.
I'm not sure that is how statistics work.
- fergussimpson 11y agoThat's exactly how statistics works. You make a statement with some degree of confidence (often 95%) and fully expect to be wrong 5% the time.
- wrsh07 11y ago> This appears to be blatantly moving the goal posts. It doesn't actually matter. All we care about are values by %. So we can say that someone in the first 5% of humans could have done this same calculation and been wrong. And that's okay. If it turns out that we are in the first 5% of humans, then we too are wrong. That's a risk we're willing to take, and statistically, it doesn't matter. It allows us to make informed decisions right now.