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Sure, but a 1000% higher likelihood is close to meaningless if we’re talking about extremely tiny fractions in absolute terms. For example, a substance that inc

by dsacco 9y ago

Sure, but a 1000% higher likelihood is close to meaningless if we’re talking about extremely tiny fractions in absolute terms. For example, a substance that increases your baseline risk of some type of cancer from 0.000003% to 0.00003% is basically imperceptible in a population of 300M people. That’s 90 incidents instead of 9 incidents out of the entire United States. You don’t have to tell me exact figures for how many people you personally know in each category, but my point is that if both figures are sufficiently small in absolute terms then the example is meaningless.

wslh 9y ago
Your analysis is wrong. Startups and crypto investments can be seen as bets and a 10x increase in favor of you is a lot. And you are not taking into account the effort factor: startups are hard while storing some cryptoassets works even when you sleep. Not saying this will work forever, just saying that many people found it lucky to enjoy the momentum.
- dsacco 9y ago
  > Your analysis is wrong. Startups and crypto investments can be seen as bets and a 10x increase in favor of you is a lot. So you think a 1000% increase in likelihood to win the lottery is meaningful? I’m not saying a 1000% increase is insignificant relatively speaking. I’m saying that in the absolute context, it can be essentially meaningless. Which circles back to my point: you should add an absolute context to your numbers instead of just saying you know more cryptocurrency millionaires than startup millionaires.
  - wslh 9y ago
    Depending the game you are playing 10x is a lot. > you should add an absolute context to your numbers instead of just saying you know more cryptocurrency millionaires than startup millionaires. My intention is not writing a paper here in HN but showing an observation that impacts the life of people around me because like it or not they can spend the rest of their life doing whatever they want at an scale I have not seen in my lifetime in an underdeveloped country like Argentina. Beyond all your calculations it is something singular to note and that is why I mentioned it here.

by dsacco 9y ago

wslh 9y ago

Your analysis is wrong. Startups and crypto investments can be seen as bets and a 10x increase in favor of you is a lot. And you are not taking into account the effort factor: startups are hard while storing some cryptoassets works even when you sleep. Not saying this will work forever, just saying that many people found it lucky to enjoy the momentum.

dsacco 9y ago
> Your analysis is wrong. Startups and crypto investments can be seen as bets and a 10x increase in favor of you is a lot. So you think a 1000% increase in likelihood to win the lottery is meaningful? I’m not saying a 1000% increase is insignificant relatively speaking. I’m saying that in the absolute context, it can be essentially meaningless. Which circles back to my point: you should add an absolute context to your numbers instead of just saying you know more cryptocurrency millionaires than startup millionaires.
- wslh 9y ago
  Depending the game you are playing 10x is a lot. > you should add an absolute context to your numbers instead of just saying you know more cryptocurrency millionaires than startup millionaires. My intention is not writing a paper here in HN but showing an observation that impacts the life of people around me because like it or not they can spend the rest of their life doing whatever they want at an scale I have not seen in my lifetime in an underdeveloped country like Argentina. Beyond all your calculations it is something singular to note and that is why I mentioned it here.