5 ms·

For what it is worth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses the following definitions[0]: virtually certain: 99-100% extremely likely: 95-100% v

by roter 8y ago

For what it is worth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses the following definitions[0]: virtually certain: 99-100% extremely likely: 95-100% very likely: 90-100% likely: 66-100% about as likely as not: 33-66% more likely than not: >50-100% more unlikely than likely: 0-<50% unlikely: 0-33% very unlikely: 0-10% extremely unlikely: 0-5% exceptionally unlikely: 0-1% [0]: https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf https://ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_...

s-shellfish 8y ago
So it follows a normal curve
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tinalumfoil 8y ago
> virtually certain: 99-100% Hopefully whoever wrote that never works in a data center, builds cars, sells insurance, gambles, works on crypto, does scientific computing, or is ever responsible for someone's life.
- csours 8y ago
  If you do any of those things, you use actual numbers with your words - which, if you actually care about the subject at hand, you should have used numbers in the first place.
- icedchai 8y ago
  You're not much of a risk taker, are you?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Implicit in your statement is the claim that you cannot acknowledge the existence of a percentile without believing any given feature of your domain can easily satisfy that percentile. That's a non sequitur. The conclusion that follows from that one is also very strange, because it would mean we shouldn't bother quantifying things (or having a name for them) if they can only be expected to happen extremely rarely.
- ehrman 8y ago
  If you're talking the realm of five 9s, etc, that's in reference to service availability at some given point in time throughout the course of a year. If you discuss the probability there will be an outage once during a year, the answer is somewhere in the middle, around "more likely than not". You could use this same probability around a pacemaker. The device is virtually certain (99%) to function at a given point throughout the year, but the probability that the device will not fail over the course of the year is not 99%. If the pacemaker had a 99% chance of not failing once during the course of a year, it would be virtually certain it would not fail during that year.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
  Well, you'd use different scales for those domains. If you thinking about crop failure, floods, macroeconomics, population trends, etc, 99% is fine for certainty. Do you agree?
arendtio 8y ago
Sounds like it is 'exceptionally unlikely' that the police will find alcohol in my blood after I drank 3 bottles of wine ;-) (Yes, I am mixing things up here)
- batiudrami 8y ago
  on the other hand, if your blood alcohol concentration rose outside the "exceptionally unlikely" range it is "almost certain" that you'd be dead.
no_identd 8y ago
Why not use the Kesselman list of estimative words? https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/bayes/2008-kesselman.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/bayes/2008-kesselman.p... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probabilit... What I find more annoying in terms of reporting: The fact that news reporting doesn't distinguish likelihood vs. probability (and vice versa).

by roter 8y ago

s-shellfish 8y ago

So it follows a normal curve

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tinalumfoil 8y ago

> virtually certain: 99-100% Hopefully whoever wrote that never works in a data center, builds cars, sells insurance, gambles, works on crypto, does scientific computing, or is ever responsible for someone's life.

csours 8y ago
If you do any of those things, you use actual numbers with your words - which, if you actually care about the subject at hand, you should have used numbers in the first place.
icedchai 8y ago
You're not much of a risk taker, are you?
throwawaymath 8y ago
Implicit in your statement is the claim that you cannot acknowledge the existence of a percentile without believing any given feature of your domain can easily satisfy that percentile. That's a non sequitur. The conclusion that follows from that one is also very strange, because it would mean we shouldn't bother quantifying things (or having a name for them) if they can only be expected to happen extremely rarely.
ehrman 8y ago
If you're talking the realm of five 9s, etc, that's in reference to service availability at some given point in time throughout the course of a year. If you discuss the probability there will be an outage once during a year, the answer is somewhere in the middle, around "more likely than not". You could use this same probability around a pacemaker. The device is virtually certain (99%) to function at a given point throughout the year, but the probability that the device will not fail over the course of the year is not 99%. If the pacemaker had a 99% chance of not failing once during the course of a year, it would be virtually certain it would not fail during that year.
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
Well, you'd use different scales for those domains. If you thinking about crop failure, floods, macroeconomics, population trends, etc, 99% is fine for certainty. Do you agree?

arendtio 8y ago

Sounds like it is 'exceptionally unlikely' that the police will find alcohol in my blood after I drank 3 bottles of wine ;-) (Yes, I am mixing things up here)

batiudrami 8y ago
on the other hand, if your blood alcohol concentration rose outside the "exceptionally unlikely" range it is "almost certain" that you'd be dead.

no_identd 8y ago

Why not use the Kesselman list of estimative words? https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/bayes/2008-kesselman.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/bayes/2008-kesselman.p... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probabilit... What I find more annoying in terms of reporting: The fact that news reporting doesn't distinguish likelihood vs. probability (and vice versa).