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I think you misunderstand what "percentile" means here, though it is indeed worded obtusely. When you say you're in the "tenth percentile", that means you're in
by chias 7y ago
I think you misunderstand what "percentile" means here, though it is indeed worded obtusely. When you say you're in the "tenth percentile", that means you're in the top 10%, not the top 0.1%. As such, when the author states "one-tenth of one-tenth of one-tenth percentile of the world" he's referencing the top 0.1%, not the top 0.001%.
By your reckoning, he's admittedly still off by a factor of 10, but not by a factor of 1000.
(note: the phrasing is made needlessly confusing by his use of "one-tenth percentile" instead of just "tenth percentile" - I suspect this is merely a transcription error, as there seem to be a number of these)
- chongli 7y agoWhen you say you're in the "tenth percentile", that means you're in the top 10% The tenth percentile is actually the bottom 10%. The top 10% is the ninetieth percentile.
- chias 7y agoWhile technically correct, this distinction is often muddied in colloquial speech when saying that a particular point is "in" an Xth percentile. I suppose it might also depend on which direction you orient your scale on the axis ;)
- sokoloff 7y agoI doubt anyone would identify a population as the “top one-tenth of the tenth percentile” rather than simplifying that to a single percentile. That leads me to conclude that 0.001% was said and intended.
- chias 7y agoYou might, if you wanted to make the number sounds more impressive... the smaller the perceived value, the stronger the point he's making, so he's trading clarity for more punch. Not saying that that's a good move, but I think it's more likely he's trying to use impressive sounding language than that he's off by three orders of magnitude on a topic that he's clearly reasonably well versed in.
- sokoloff 7y agoFrom my viewpoint, he's trading being wrong for more punch. The clip starts at 4m42s. He clearly says "one-tenth of one-tenth of one-tenth percentile". One percentile is 1 part in 100. One tenth of that is 1 in 1000. One tenth of that two more times makes it 1 in 100,000. Across the world population, that's ~75,000. (There are more millionaire households in Kentucky than that figure.)
- Arnt 7y agoIf percentile refers to tenths, what does decile mean and what's the difference between the top percentile and the top decile?
- chias 7y ago> if percentile refers to tenths It doesn't, percentile refers to percents. Tenth percentile means is the 10%, twentieth percentile means the 20%, etc.