5 ms·

"What makes me a good Demoman? Well if I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be sitting here discussing it with you, now would I?" One of the silliest, hilarious bu

by dvtrn 4y ago

"What makes me a good Demoman? Well if I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be sitting here discussing it with you, now would I?" One of the silliest, hilarious but on point thing I've ever heard uttered from a video game character

ethbr0 4y ago
"Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer: that means I solve problems. Not problems like 'What is beauty?' Because that would fall without the purview of your condundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems..." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgNBsCI4EA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgNBsCI4EA
bawolff 4y ago
Survivorship bias personified
- sophacles 4y ago
  But... in a field where being bad at your job is fatal, is it really a fallacy? Serious question - just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Its still a fallacy because some people are just lucky instead of being skilled, and its entirely possible to confuse the two. In the same way, an appeal to an authority is better than nothing, but its still a really weak argument. You can misunderstand authorities and authority can be mistaken or suborned. Its a reasonable argument if nobody knows much about the topic, but its never convincing if people are learned in the topic; the benefit of an expert is not that they are experts, its that they know how to defend their position with reasoning. As the motto of the royal society says "Nullius in verba".
    - zhengyi13 4y ago
      Luck eventually runs out. That's not to say you're wrong, only that I expect the distribution of the lucky amongst the skilled tends towards zero over sufficient time. "Beware old men in a young man's game."
      - Retric 4y ago
        Depends on how often you role the dice not just how bad the dice are. Someone that’s got a 1% chance of dying every fireworks show is extraordinarily bad at their job. But if they only put on 2 shows a year they have better than even odds of surviving a 40 year career.
        somenameforme 4y ago
        The odds there are surprisingly high, but not better than even. 44.75%
        GreymanTheGrey 4y ago
        Actually the OP is correct - the odds of dying are 44.75%, while the odds of surviving are the corollary of 55.25%, i.e. greater than even. Edit: Nope I'm wrong, just redid the math. Apologies.
        bawolff 4y ago
        But the important odds in this situation is not the individual, but the group - if you start with a group of 100 (or whatever) people extraordinarily bad at their job, what is the probability at least 1 makes it 40 years. Survivorship bias is a bias because the sample is biased - Its when you pick a group of people who have already won and then are surprised that they beat the odds and won because you confuse the probability that a specific person wins with the probability that at least 1 person wins.
        dmurray 4y ago
        Actually, the important odds are: given that you've met a 75-year old explosives professional, how likely is it that he was skilful instead of lucky? To get a good estimate of this you need to come up with some priors about how many skilful and unskillful equivalents there were at the age of 30 and how much worse the unskillful ones are at staying alive.
  - panqueque 4y ago
    > just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc. The credentials of the expert don't determine whether or not the statement is an appeal to authority.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
The bad demomen had to be glued back together. In hell.
jimnotgym 4y ago
It strikes me that if you work with modern explosives and follow sensible procedures like retiring to a safe distance, the risks to you are not that high. The risks in a demolition are huge, but not to the life of the explosives guy. I can imagine the job of weakening the structure, (by removing parts of it) prior to the explosives carry more risk to the operator
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  I don’t know. I’m a trained chemist and after enough years, you have that one day where you might’ve went to sleep too late and where you use the wrong type of glass, and a boiling vat of sulfuric acid etc. fails quickly and melts a bunch of stuff. Sometimes I’m glad I’m in this field though, because I hear about the researchers working on prions that have started dying off, and I know it’s one of those one and 100,000 events that you inevitably experience.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    What's this about the prion researchers? I only know about the one lady (from France?) who caught it after puncturing her glove. If I remember correctly she didn't follow the proper protocols afterwards (although it's debatable if they would have made a difference).
- yencabulator 4y ago
  If you screw it up, you end with a non-exploded thing that you have to tear down. That's where the risk is. Plastic explosive with electric igniter ain't that bad, but old school fuses and mines are scary.

by dvtrn 4y ago

ethbr0 4y ago

"Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer: that means I solve problems. Not problems like 'What is beauty?' Because that would fall without the purview of your condundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems..." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgNBsCI4EA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgNBsCI4EA

bawolff 4y ago

Survivorship bias personified

sophacles 4y ago
But... in a field where being bad at your job is fatal, is it really a fallacy? Serious question - just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc.
- bawolff 4y ago
  Its still a fallacy because some people are just lucky instead of being skilled, and its entirely possible to confuse the two. In the same way, an appeal to an authority is better than nothing, but its still a really weak argument. You can misunderstand authorities and authority can be mistaken or suborned. Its a reasonable argument if nobody knows much about the topic, but its never convincing if people are learned in the topic; the benefit of an expert is not that they are experts, its that they know how to defend their position with reasoning. As the motto of the royal society says "Nullius in verba".
  - zhengyi13 4y ago
    Luck eventually runs out. That's not to say you're wrong, only that I expect the distribution of the lucky amongst the skilled tends towards zero over sufficient time. "Beware old men in a young man's game."
    - Retric 4y ago
      Depends on how often you role the dice not just how bad the dice are. Someone that’s got a 1% chance of dying every fireworks show is extraordinarily bad at their job. But if they only put on 2 shows a year they have better than even odds of surviving a 40 year career.
      - somenameforme 4y ago
        The odds there are surprisingly high, but not better than even. 44.75%
        GreymanTheGrey 4y ago
        Actually the OP is correct - the odds of dying are 44.75%, while the odds of surviving are the corollary of 55.25%, i.e. greater than even. Edit: Nope I'm wrong, just redid the math. Apologies.
        bawolff 4y ago
        But the important odds in this situation is not the individual, but the group - if you start with a group of 100 (or whatever) people extraordinarily bad at their job, what is the probability at least 1 makes it 40 years. Survivorship bias is a bias because the sample is biased - Its when you pick a group of people who have already won and then are surprised that they beat the odds and won because you confuse the probability that a specific person wins with the probability that at least 1 person wins.
        dmurray 4y ago
        Actually, the important odds are: given that you've met a 75-year old explosives professional, how likely is it that he was skilful instead of lucky? To get a good estimate of this you need to come up with some priors about how many skilful and unskillful equivalents there were at the age of 30 and how much worse the unskillful ones are at staying alive.
- panqueque 4y ago
  > just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc. The credentials of the expert don't determine whether or not the statement is an appeal to authority.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

The bad demomen had to be glued back together. In hell.

jimnotgym 4y ago

It strikes me that if you work with modern explosives and follow sensible procedures like retiring to a safe distance, the risks to you are not that high. The risks in a demolition are huge, but not to the life of the explosives guy. I can imagine the job of weakening the structure, (by removing parts of it) prior to the explosives carry more risk to the operator

mensetmanusman 4y ago
I don’t know. I’m a trained chemist and after enough years, you have that one day where you might’ve went to sleep too late and where you use the wrong type of glass, and a boiling vat of sulfuric acid etc. fails quickly and melts a bunch of stuff. Sometimes I’m glad I’m in this field though, because I hear about the researchers working on prions that have started dying off, and I know it’s one of those one and 100,000 events that you inevitably experience.
- giantg2 4y ago
  What's this about the prion researchers? I only know about the one lady (from France?) who caught it after puncturing her glove. If I remember correctly she didn't follow the proper protocols afterwards (although it's debatable if they would have made a difference).
yencabulator 4y ago
If you screw it up, you end with a non-exploded thing that you have to tear down. That's where the risk is. Plastic explosive with electric igniter ain't that bad, but old school fuses and mines are scary.