3 ms·

Why not just actually list the number you have in mind so everyone's on the same page "we consider it a serious possibility - about 60% - that bla bla bla"

andrewflnr 1y ago
Almost no one making these statements has an actual number in mind, or they would just say it. Probably not even in intelligence, definitely not in popular usage.
- kmoser 1y ago
  But if there's a standardized chart that maps the phrase to a number, certainly you'd expect whoever is writing the phrase to know what number it maps to. For the sake of simplicity, then, why not just use the number to avoid all doubt?
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    The biggest reason is probably just that your boss told you to. But also downthread we were talking about the illusion of quantitative thought that comes from using specific numbers, which would be a slightly better reason to use words instead.
  - qmr 1y ago
    I don't think there is a standardized chart. Rather the chart shows people's subjective mental mapping of the description to a probability.
    - andrewflnr 1y ago
      The chart at the bottom of the article is explicitly a standard adopted by UK intelligence. (ed: well, proposed for adoption, it's not clear from the article how far it actually got.)
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > But if there's a standardized chart that maps the phrase to a number, The chart doesn't map each phrase to a number, in fact given that the colored areas extend beyond the marked lines and fade, it doesn't even map each to an unambiguous, bounded range of numbers.
- qznc 1y ago
  Using actual numbers requires a little bit of training but not much. I believe many would benefit from doing it.
tasuki 1y ago
Because then it doesn't happen and (dumb) people will say "see you were wrong".
suddenlybananas 1y ago
Because that's not how the mind works. We don't have conscious access to our internal credence of some event in probabilities (unclear if we even evaluate probabilities internally at all).

andrewflnr 1y ago

Almost no one making these statements has an actual number in mind, or they would just say it. Probably not even in intelligence, definitely not in popular usage.

kmoser 1y ago
But if there's a standardized chart that maps the phrase to a number, certainly you'd expect whoever is writing the phrase to know what number it maps to. For the sake of simplicity, then, why not just use the number to avoid all doubt?
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  The biggest reason is probably just that your boss told you to. But also downthread we were talking about the illusion of quantitative thought that comes from using specific numbers, which would be a slightly better reason to use words instead.
- qmr 1y ago
  I don't think there is a standardized chart. Rather the chart shows people's subjective mental mapping of the description to a probability.
  - andrewflnr 1y ago
    The chart at the bottom of the article is explicitly a standard adopted by UK intelligence. (ed: well, proposed for adoption, it's not clear from the article how far it actually got.)
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > But if there's a standardized chart that maps the phrase to a number, The chart doesn't map each phrase to a number, in fact given that the colored areas extend beyond the marked lines and fade, it doesn't even map each to an unambiguous, bounded range of numbers.
qznc 1y ago
Using actual numbers requires a little bit of training but not much. I believe many would benefit from doing it.

tasuki 1y ago

Because then it doesn't happen and (dumb) people will say "see you were wrong".

suddenlybananas 1y ago

Because that's not how the mind works. We don't have conscious access to our internal credence of some event in probabilities (unclear if we even evaluate probabilities internally at all).