4 ms·
> I am more likely to have been born in a high population country than a low population country There are more people who are not me than who are me. Therefor
by phs 5y ago
> I am more likely to have been born in a high population country than a low population country
There are more people who are not me than who are me. Therefore I am more likely to have been born not me than to have been born me.
- alexanderdmitri 5y agoI believe this is commonly known to mathematicians as the 'karma is a bitch' rule.
- natosaichek 5y agoIt's true! If you didn't know who you were, and were asked to take odds on the probability that you were phs, I hope you'd bet that you weren't, 'cause odds are about 10 billion to one against.
- croon 5y agoThere shouldn't be an I in statistics.
- titzer 5y agoExcept we're reasoning about the chain of events that led to us reasoning about the chain of events, so it is inherently self-referential.
- imtringued 5y agoThe problem is that there is no one on the other side of the bet. The self referential word play obscures the actual bet instance. "There are more people who are not phs than who are phs. Therefore I am more likely to have been born not phs than to have been born phs." "There are more people who are not imtringued than who are imtringued. Therefore I am more likely to have been born not imtringued than to have been born imtringued." The problem becomes obvious, it's a different bet each time and each time all winners are excluded because they never enter into the bet in the first place. E.g. I will never bet "Therefore I am more likely to have been born not phs than to have been born phs." even though it's a clear win for me.