3 ms·
The Drake equation works much better when you use probability distributions rather than point estimates.
by kelseyfrog 2y ago
The Drake equation works much better when you use probability distributions rather than point estimates.
- shermantanktop 2y agoCan you define “works” in this context?
- kelseyfrog 2y agoProduces probability distributions that aren't clearly extreme like 0 or 1billion.
- shermantanktop 2y agoRight, ok fair. The handling of intermediate distributions when combining factors is straightforward math but I have found it almost impossible to have a coherent conversation about that with many people, especially tech leaders. They want to talk about outcomes so they collapse all the intermediates into if/else decision trees and then get unhappy when the final probability doesn’t match their intuition. And these are smart people… I just think most people generally struggle with contingent probability. Do have links to this type of treatment of Drake?
- kelseyfrog 2y agohttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404 and discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17560462 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17560462