[ZephyrBlu]

Put another way, don't extrapolate based on unspecific information. Context matters a lot, and the average case is rarely useful for making a decision.

Ben mentions his writing on outliers [1] and how "low-info heuristics tell you that outliers can’t exist", which is completely true but I want to add another perspective to that.

As mentioned in the outliers piece, you want to rule things in not out. The average case is good for ruling things out, but terrible for ruling things in. Specifics to your scenario will always be the reason to rule in on things that look bad in the average case.

[1] https://www.benkuhn.net/outliers/