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by tonyedgecombe 3495 days ago
Well it will only amplify values > 1.
1 comments

That's not correct. Even though the magnitudes of the value in isolation shrinks, the relative magnitudes are still amplified which is what matters.

Consider values 1/2 and 1/4: in the original space it's double but in the squared space it becomes 1/4 and 1/16 so the difference is 4x. Also relevantly if you compare eg 0.9 and 1, the gap between them is amplified after squaring.

Those values aren't compared individually, they are summed to calculate the deviation, the result of that sum will be reduced if the values are < 1.