4 ms·
It seems infinitely more likely to me that this is simple coincidence than something nefarious.
by squigz 6mo ago
It seems infinitely more likely to me that this is simple coincidence than something nefarious.
- vermilingua 6mo agoDon’t get me wrong, I agree; but the odds of that coincidence are extremely long.
- ryankrage77 6mo agoI'm sad my second thought about this (after dismissing it as a coincidence) was that it could be used for marketing - "I randomly thought about this book/show/movie whatever, and hey what do you know? The sequel is coming out!". Basically another variation on 'organic' advertising in comments that's been around for a while. Of course I highly doubt that's what actually happening here, but the idea is unpleasant. I hate advertising, I don't want it messing with real interactions with other humans. I'm not sure how to express the idea, it's like its so pervasive I'm thinking about it when its not even present.
- vermilingua 6mo agoThis idea makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I shouldn't have included the name of the book in my original comment (now too late to edit).
- pfannkuchen 6mo agoIs it possible this is due to a memorability bias, where perhaps you’ve done basically the same sort of thing many times before and just forgot about it because nothing noteworthy happened? Then it wouldn’t be as much of a coincidence.
- PufPufPuf 6mo agoIf you check on average every three years, the odds of you checking the very same day the book comes out are about 1‰, which is improbable but not _extremely_. Add that together with all the probabilities of things that would make you think "wow, that's improbable" and we have pretty high odds of something improbable happening.
- ButlerianJihad 6mo agoOkay, I squinted hard at that notation “1‰” and had Gemini explain it to me, and it appears that you made no typos, but I couldn’t let that go unexplained!
- vermilingua 6mo agoButlerianJihad… had Gemini explain it to you…
- throwanem 6mo agoWell, you know. Every med student goes through this "I Am An Earthly God" phase. Usually it passes. But the guy isn't obviously in favor of the concept for which his account is named, so there isn't the contradiction here that appears to exist on the face of it. (Speaking of usernames, hello, Grima! How on Middle-earth did you survive that fall?)
- vermilingua 6mo agoLiterally the first person to understand the reference in ~14 years of using this handle, thank you.
- throwanem 6mo agoYou are most welcome! - especially at such long last.
- PufPufPuf 6mo agoCouldn't skip an opportunity to use an unusual character, could I‽
- GuB-42 6mo agoIn addition, there are factors that make it more probable. - The sequel came out a bit less than 2 years after the first book, which is fairly typical. It means it is a likely time to think "what about the sequel?" - Doctor appointments and book releases both tend to happen on tuesdays. Especially book releases, so it is possible that you tend to think more about books on tuesdays - It is possible to think about the book more than once without realizing it, maybe even inquery about the sequel without realizing it, and because the result is negative and unimportant, it is easy to forget. It is not uncommon for me to search something just to find it in my history, completely forgotten I would put the likelihood of something like that happening by accident to about 1/100, the "noticeable but not memorable" kind, such as meeting the same person twice in a day in a different context, or arriving at a highly coveted parking spot just as the previous guy is leaving.