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by codys 3738 days ago
> several centuries ago

> tens of thousands of years ago

This appears to be blatantly moving the goal posts.

> those first 5% of people who ever lived represent the 5% of the time we expect to be wrong

This implies that for only 5% of human history the calculation would be wrong, and the reset of the time it would be 100% correct.

I'm not sure that is how statistics work.
2 comments
fergussimpson 3738 days ago
That's exactly how statistics works.

You make a statement with some degree of confidence (often 95%) and fully expect to be wrong 5% the time.

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wrsh07 3734 days ago
> This appears to be blatantly moving the goal posts.

It doesn't actually matter. All we care about are values by %. So we can say that someone in the first 5% of humans could have done this same calculation and been wrong. And that's okay.

If it turns out that we are in the first 5% of humans, then we too are wrong. That's a risk we're willing to take, and statistically, it doesn't matter. It allows us to make informed decisions right now.

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