3 ms·

That’s not what it says on the tin though. “Drawn at random from everyone who has ever lived” means years will not be uniformly distributed.

butlike 1mo ago
This is a case where I think they should change the wording as opposed to the functionality. I like that it's a random year regardless of population density.
- janalsncm 1mo ago
  That would certainly be easier at this point, but I like the “random human life” idea more. I’ve reflected in the past about how lucky I am to have been born where I was, when I was, and be given the abilities that I have. Sure there are plenty of people that were luckier, but also a lot who were less lucky, most of whom are dead.
- glenstein 1mo ago
  But as other have noted it's almost certainly not just a random year. I do think the cleanest and most fascinating interpretation is what the title says "One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived" which clearly is about random people and has nothing to do with the year. But I think experientially, the preferred feeling for a user is a random deep dive into the circumstantiality of different eras and different geographies than our own, rather than a true-to-life re-rolling that would constantly turn up 20th and 21st century outcomes. So the spirit of it is probably closer to the random year idea, but it's literally not random year, but maybe randomly something else, like eras however designated.
  - janalsncm 1mo ago
    If the implementation was correct it wouldn’t be hard to let the user choose either option. Yes, many births would be within the last 200 years but it’s still very different to be a man born in the year 1950 in New York vs a woman in 1950 in rural China.
golem14 1mo ago
"random" != "uniformly random", if you want to be pedantic.
- Xirdus 1mo ago
  But "is far more likely to fall near the present" = "is far more likely to fall near the present". The author makes the claim about probability distribution themselves, then does the opposite.
  - golem14 1mo ago
    You're right, yet I agree with the website's approach. The goal of this site is to educate users about how people lived, not educate them about stats. IMO. I would have chosen the same algo. It's clear to me that an even bigger HC crowd would howl "Oh, how boring, look at him choosing pretty much only still alive people" if he had done the 'uniformly random" selection. C'mon!
    - Xirdus 1mo ago
      > The goal of this site is to educate users about how people lived, not educate them about stats. IMO. And IMO, a website that's 95% stats by volume very clearly is about stats. If the goal is teaching anything, it's teaching stats. It literally does animations showing the random process, and explicitly says how likely each outcome is, even sorts by likelihood in some places. Again, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that if the website itself didn't explicitly say that recent births are more likely than non-recent births. Personally, the one 1990s person I've got was far more interesting than the dozen of 5th-15th century children that all died of one sickness or another before the age of 2. If anything, it's the dying of dysentery that should be non-uniformly random.
ramraj07 1mo ago
Should we call this a cargo cult

butlike 1mo ago

This is a case where I think they should change the wording as opposed to the functionality. I like that it's a random year regardless of population density.

janalsncm 1mo ago
That would certainly be easier at this point, but I like the “random human life” idea more. I’ve reflected in the past about how lucky I am to have been born where I was, when I was, and be given the abilities that I have. Sure there are plenty of people that were luckier, but also a lot who were less lucky, most of whom are dead.
glenstein 1mo ago
But as other have noted it's almost certainly not just a random year. I do think the cleanest and most fascinating interpretation is what the title says "One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived" which clearly is about random people and has nothing to do with the year. But I think experientially, the preferred feeling for a user is a random deep dive into the circumstantiality of different eras and different geographies than our own, rather than a true-to-life re-rolling that would constantly turn up 20th and 21st century outcomes. So the spirit of it is probably closer to the random year idea, but it's literally not random year, but maybe randomly something else, like eras however designated.
- janalsncm 1mo ago
  If the implementation was correct it wouldn’t be hard to let the user choose either option. Yes, many births would be within the last 200 years but it’s still very different to be a man born in the year 1950 in New York vs a woman in 1950 in rural China.

golem14 1mo ago

"random" != "uniformly random", if you want to be pedantic.

Xirdus 1mo ago
But "is far more likely to fall near the present" = "is far more likely to fall near the present". The author makes the claim about probability distribution themselves, then does the opposite.
- golem14 1mo ago
  You're right, yet I agree with the website's approach. The goal of this site is to educate users about how people lived, not educate them about stats. IMO. I would have chosen the same algo. It's clear to me that an even bigger HC crowd would howl "Oh, how boring, look at him choosing pretty much only still alive people" if he had done the 'uniformly random" selection. C'mon!
  - Xirdus 1mo ago
    > The goal of this site is to educate users about how people lived, not educate them about stats. IMO. And IMO, a website that's 95% stats by volume very clearly is about stats. If the goal is teaching anything, it's teaching stats. It literally does animations showing the random process, and explicitly says how likely each outcome is, even sorts by likelihood in some places. Again, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that if the website itself didn't explicitly say that recent births are more likely than non-recent births. Personally, the one 1990s person I've got was far more interesting than the dozen of 5th-15th century children that all died of one sickness or another before the age of 2. If anything, it's the dying of dysentery that should be non-uniformly random.

ramraj07 1mo ago

Should we call this a cargo cult