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variance. Have you noticed that the mainstream public-level discussion of almost any topic never progresses farther than a point estimate? Variance implies nuan

variance. Have you noticed that the mainstream public-level discussion of almost any topic never progresses farther than a point estimate? Variance implies nuance, and nuance is annoying to those who'd just rather paint a story. Variance isn't even that much nuance, because it is also just a point estimate for the variability of a distribution, not even its shape. Public discourse is stuck at the mean point estimate, and as such, is constantly misled. This is all an analogy, but feels very true.

contravariant 2y ago
Sometimes even an average is too much to ask. One of my pet peeves is articles about "number changed". Averages and significance never enter the discussion. Worst are the ones where he number is the number of times some random event happened. In that case there's a decent chance the difference is less than twice the square root, so assuming a Poisson distribution you know the difference is insignificant.
KeplerBoy 2y ago
This reminds me of the presidential election where most credible institutions talked about 50/50 odds and where subsequently criticized after Trump's clear victory in terms of electoral votes. Few people bothered to look at the probability distributions the forecasters published which showed decent probabilities for landslide wins in either direction.
michaelt 2y ago
> Have you noticed that the mainstream public-level discussion of almost any topic never progresses farther than a point estimate? [...] Variance isn't even that much nuance, because it is also just a point estimate for the variability of a distribution, not even its shape. Next time you're doing something that isn't a professional STEM job, see how far you can get through your day without adding or multiplying. Unless you're totting up your score in a board game or something of that ilk, you'll be amazed at how accommodating our society is to people who can't add or multiply. Sure, when you're in the supermarket you can add up your purchases as you shop, if you want to. But if you don't want to, you can just buy about the same things every week for about the same price. Or keep a rough total of the big items. Or you can put things back once you see the total at the till. Or you can 'click and collect' to know exactly what the bill will be. You don't see mainstream discussion of variance because 90% of the population don't know WTF a variance is.
mcmoor 2y ago
Seems like there's only bandwidth of 4bit that can be reserved for this, and variance couldn't make the cut. It's actually already generous since sometimes only 1 bit can barely make it through, whether something is "good" or "bad".

contravariant 2y ago

Sometimes even an average is too much to ask. One of my pet peeves is articles about "number changed". Averages and significance never enter the discussion. Worst are the ones where he number is the number of times some random event happened. In that case there's a decent chance the difference is less than twice the square root, so assuming a Poisson distribution you know the difference is insignificant.

KeplerBoy 2y ago

This reminds me of the presidential election where most credible institutions talked about 50/50 odds and where subsequently criticized after Trump's clear victory in terms of electoral votes. Few people bothered to look at the probability distributions the forecasters published which showed decent probabilities for landslide wins in either direction.

michaelt 2y ago

> Have you noticed that the mainstream public-level discussion of almost any topic never progresses farther than a point estimate? [...] Variance isn't even that much nuance, because it is also just a point estimate for the variability of a distribution, not even its shape. Next time you're doing something that isn't a professional STEM job, see how far you can get through your day without adding or multiplying. Unless you're totting up your score in a board game or something of that ilk, you'll be amazed at how accommodating our society is to people who can't add or multiply. Sure, when you're in the supermarket you can add up your purchases as you shop, if you want to. But if you don't want to, you can just buy about the same things every week for about the same price. Or keep a rough total of the big items. Or you can put things back once you see the total at the till. Or you can 'click and collect' to know exactly what the bill will be. You don't see mainstream discussion of variance because 90% of the population don't know WTF a variance is.

mcmoor 2y ago

Seems like there's only bandwidth of 4bit that can be reserved for this, and variance couldn't make the cut. It's actually already generous since sometimes only 1 bit can barely make it through, whether something is "good" or "bad".