Basic concepts that seem to escape the grasp of most people

[Ns1]

Holy shit I'm fucked.

I've never had a car accident. I'm in my mid 30's. I guess I should sell my car to play it safe.

Yep. Wife had the same logic: "10 years no tickets or accidents best driver ever!" Then a ticket and 2 accidents in the same year.


Just sell your car and leave the roads to us ciclists

 

[Belegost]

I agree with probabilities above.

It is also possible (and even probable) that the company is increasing the premiums to what the consumer will bear. While the models are empirically driven, they are also return, and profit, driven.

My homeowners insurance increased this year. Same house, same valuation, same demographics. Why? Because they could increase it and most likely I wouldn't switch. Only owned my house 2 years, nothing has changed and the company even said that.

This is very true, and a service rep put on the spot to explain rising rates could certainly come up with a "your due for an accident" excuse.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[SlitheryDee]

Bingo.



While true that the odds of 4 in a row are bad, if you begin calculating the odds fresh before the 4th flip, you're back to 1/2. It's the 'you're already over the hump' thing that people can't wrap their heads around. There is a pun there.

Coin flip probabilities are interesting. If I consider the chances of there being at least one heads in the four it becomes a bit clearer. All the different configurations that set of flips can take are equally probable. There aren't that many either. When you use terminology like "at least one heads" what you're really doing is excluding the single configuration out of all 16 possibilities that contains no heads. That means the chances are 15/16 before you flip any coins that you'll get at least one heads.

Somehow this fact is something that people pick up instinctively. With each flip the probabilities change though. You're not working with the same set of possible configurations because you've been eliminating them by flipping the coins and closing off possible configurations with each flip. Once you've flipped three tails, the only two possibilities you have left are TTTH, and TTTT. Two possibilities that are equally probable and dependent on a single coin flip to determine. Back to 50/50.



If I don't consciously work this out my first inclination is to not believe it though. Dunno why that is.

 

[shortylickens]

When Shorty wants that ass, Shorty GETS that ass.

You all motherfuckers just dont know.

 

[Belegost]

Coin flip probabilities are interesting. If I consider the chances of there being at least one heads in the four it becomes a bit clearer. All the different configurations that set of flips can take are equally probable. There aren't that many either. When you use terminology like "at least one heads" what you're really doing is excluding the single configuration out of all 16 possibilities that contains no heads. That means the chances are 15/16 before you flip any coins that you'll get at least one heads.

Somehow this fact is something that people pick up instinctively. With each flip the probabilities change though. You're not working with the same set of possible configurations because you've been eliminating them by flipping the coins and closing off possible configurations with each flip. Once you've flipped three tails, the only two possibilities you have left are TTTH, and TTTT. Two possibilities that are equally probable and dependent on a single coin flip to determine. Back to 50/50.



If I don't consciously work this out my first inclination is to not believe it though. Dunno why that is.

It's because humans developed in an environment that doesn't work that way. Natural processes tend to evolve in time with dependence on the past. If you shoot a bow and miss a deer 3 times, each time with the shot going right of your aim, you learn to adjust your aim more left. Or if twice in a month tides come and wash away your beach hut, you learn to move your hut to higher ground. If it rained today, it's more likely it will rain tomorrow. Humans that failed to learn patterns in the world didn't do as well, so modern humans have evolved to detect temporal patterns quite well. It's built into us at a very deep level.

The problem is that coin flips, or dice rolls, and similar event structures tied to independent and identically distributed random variables don't follow this. They fundamentally break hundreds of thousands of years of human adaptation, and it makes it difficult for people to understand it on an intuitive level.

This is exactly why gambling is so insidious, it purposely sets the ground rules in ways that undermine the human mind. So people (some even in this thread) believe that the dice will go "hot" or the roulette wheel will go on a streak.

 

[Sonikku]

And shit, I stopped getting any Christmas presents at all when I was about 7, so guess how many tears I'm shedding for poor abused souls who get clothes.

Seven? Not Thirteen, or Twelve, but Seven? Well, damn. :'(

*hugs*

 

[angminas]

Seven? Not Thirteen, or Twelve, but Seven? Well, damn. :'(

*hugs*

Thanks. It was a religious choice, though, and I still stand by it. Don't want it to sound like I was being abused (well, I was, but not in that way). When we still celebrated Christmas, my mom tried hard to get us good stuff.

I really, REALLY wanted a Millennium Falcon, but $60 was a hell of a lot of money back then for a single parent. One Christmas I found a note from Santa saying that the Millennium Falcon was too expensive, but he hoped I'd enjoy what I got instead. I got a Cloud Car AND Slave One, which was a lot more than I expected. Even at like four years old, I was able to appreciate my mom's effort, and I enjoyed those toys for years.

Until we moved halfway across the country in a tiny Mazda wagon and left behind 3/4 of our belongings. One grocery bag for toys. That sucked. I still miss some of that stuff, 30 years later.

 

[Jeff7]

...
This is exactly why gambling is so insidious, it purposely sets the ground rules in ways that undermine the human mind. So people (some even in this thread) believe that the dice will go "hot" or the roulette wheel will go on a streak.

Or back to the totally-legal state-run lotteries, and people's belief that certain strings of numbers have a higher chance of winning. I've mentioned before that I've had to wait in line at a convenience store (only one register) with someone ahead of me buying maybe 10 lottery tickets, and they are giving the cashier a list of specific numbers.

The lottery operator's random number generator doesn't give a damn about your dog's birth date or your love of even numbers.

 

[DrPizza]

Ha! You just admitted that a treadmill moves you backwards, even if you're on ball bearings! Therefore, the plane can't take off, QED (I don't know what that means, but I think it's how smart people say "shut up").

Ha! I was thinking of a treadmill that had an incline built into it.

Inadvertently, I proved that the airplane can take off on a treadmill, going uphill!

 

[Carson Dyle]

The lottery operator's random number generator doesn't give a damn about your dog's birth date or your love of even numbers.

But the lottery operator cares A LOT. If people weren't able to play "their" numbers, revenue would much lower than what it is.

 

[Jeff7]

But the lottery operator cares A LOT. If people weren't able to play "their" numbers, revenue would much lower than what it is.

Oh, for sure, no doubt there. The illusion of control.

The whole concept of the lottery depends on the fact that people suck when it comes to probability.




Like that crap with CERN possibly producing an Earth-consuming black hole if string theory is correct, and if what we think we know about black holes is thoroughly wrong, and if we ignore the incredibly-energetic cosmic ray particles that sometimes slam into the atmosphere: The scientists involved said it'd be like a person winning the lottery every day for two weeks. So people switched into Dumb & Dumber mode: "So you're sayin' there's a chance? Stop trying to destroy the world! Anyway, I'll be right back. I'm going to drive to the store to get cigarettes and not wear a seatbelt. It's not like anything bad will ever happen to me as a result."

 

[Imp]

Remembered another one...

Not that basic, but useful to know, especially now, and I picked it up from years of playing PC games and growing up watching Afghanistan/Iraq news stories or documentaries on TV a decade ago: how special forces operate or what they do. In Canada, maybe other places too but I'll stick to Canada, there are people who are somehow allowing themselves to be led on when the government tells them that special forces sent to "advise" in Iraq are not on a "combat mission" and not on the "front line."


Maybe there is no "combat mission" on the "front line" using whatever definitions politicians use... But from online comments (great source but so many), it seems like people think special forces "advising" just go stand around in a compound, far away from fighting, and make people do push-ups or help set up a firing range. What I've gathered from TV and games is that "advising" means embedding themselves, organizing, and/or leading indigenous forces wherever they operate (e.g. early Afghanistan in 2003-ish).

 

[Moonbeam]

People who argue that cold water will freeze faster than hot water when everybody knows that hot water freezes faster, right?

 

[Carson Dyle]

The whole concept of the lottery depends on the fact that people suck when it comes to probability.

Mmmmmm.... not really. People know intuitively (as well as having been told a million times) that the odds against them are astronomical. It's not gambling, and nobody kids themselves otherwise.

 

[angminas]

Mmmmmm.... not really. People know intuitively (as well as having been told a million times) that the odds against them are astronomical. It's not gambling, and nobody kids themselves otherwise.

There's a difference between being told something and knowing it. AKA the "wow, my parents were right" moment

 

[Jeff7]

Mmmmmm.... not really. People know intuitively (as well as having been told a million times) that the odds against them are astronomical. It's not gambling, and nobody kids themselves otherwise.

Uh....you're wagering money in the hopes that a presently-unknown randomly-generated number will be in your favor. How is that not gambling?


Also: You know smarter people than I do.
Astonishingly common things that people think:
- That playing something like 10-11-12-13-14-15 has less chance of winning than 34-12-13-23-19-05 because the first is sequential.
- That playing the same numbers each week will reduce your chance of winning, as though last week's result changes the next.
- That they're "due" to win eventually.
- Spending more per week substantially increases one's chances. (Buy 10 tickets. Your chance goes from "damn unlikely" to "still damn unlikely.")


Most people don't understand what "1 in 100,000,000 chance" really means. Most people have trouble with numbers over several thousand. And quite a few people, even college level, aren't even certain of how to arrange million, billion, and trillion in proper sequence.

 

[Ichinisan]

Orientation of TP roll on the dispenser.

 

[waffleironhead]

Orientation of TP roll on the dispenser.

Unless you have a cat that like to unroll the tp, then under is acceptable.

 

[Ichinisan]

Unless you have a cat that like to unroll the tp, then under is acceptable.

Under is unacceptable.

Cat is unacceptable.

 

[Dirigible]

Cat is unacceptable.

It's astonishing how few people realize that.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Uh....you're wagering money in the hopes that a presently-unknown randomly-generated number will be in your favor. How is that not gambling?

It's not a "wager" for anyone playing. It's wishing on a star.

Go find a fountain full of pennies. Throw one in and make a wish for a million dollars. Is that a wager? No. But it's exactly the same as playing the lottery.

Look... You don't get it. I get that you don't get it. Just leave it at that.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Money is not a substitute for understanding.

 

[MongGrel]

People who argue that cold water will freeze faster than hot water when everybody knows that hot water freezes faster, right?

Depends on how much access to liquid nitrogen you have I guess.

Some things are irrelevant in arguments.

Anything can be skewed, just a matter if it's worth it sometimes.

Not really relevant to the OP I guess.

 

[Ns1]

It's not a "wager" for anyone playing. It's wishing on a star.

Go find a fountain full of pennies. Throw one in and make a wish for a million dollars. Is that a wager? No. But it's exactly the same as playing the lottery.

Look... You don't get it. I get that you don't get it. Just leave it at that.

Fail analogy of the day