People Believe If 90% Prefer A over B, A Must Be Much Better than B. Are They Wrong?
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I canât remember which comedian it was, but he said whenever he hears something like 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a particular medication, he wonders what that 5th doctor knows that the others donât?
The fifth Doctor knows who the Portreeve of Castrovalva really is.
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feels a bit strange to not include the full quote, which changes the sentiment quite a bit:
âA person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.â -
Holy shit, I am totally guilty of this.
For those who havenât yet read the article, the idea is that people interpret â80% of people prefer Pepsi Max to Cokeâ as âPepsi Max is 80% yummier than Cokeâ, when in reality most of that 80% only slightly prefers Pepsi.
Basically a strong difference in proportion of people who prefer one option to another does not necessarily imply a strong difference in the average opinion between the two.
i mean itâs also important to note that companies can blatantly lie
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I canât remember which comedian it was, but he said whenever he hears something like 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a particular medication, he wonders what that 5th doctor knows that the others donât?
4 out of 5 dentists recommend using toothpaste and couldnât possibly give less of a fuck which brand you use, the fifth dentist was on vacation
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good old âif you see an engineer running, you should probably follow themâ
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I mean, better is subjective. You canât quantify that.
If 90% of people like something over something else, that is all that it means. For all those people it is better for them. But for 10% it isnât better, let alone much better.
This is more a philosophical question than a science one.
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good old âif you see an engineer running, you should probably follow themâ
Same with bomb disposal units and nuclear scientists.
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Eg. USA.
Eg. Pretty much every group of people in the history of humanity. We tend to forget that weâre just dumb animals with dumb animal instinct sometimes.
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feels a bit strange to not include the full quote, which changes the sentiment quite a bit:
âA person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.âConsidering the post is about people, and the âpersonâ in the quote can be assumed to represent the reader of said âstatisticâ, the quote functions as provided.
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We havenât yet found a case where believing something literally makes it true, contrary to what religion and politics would have you think, so the answer is a resolute âcanât sayâ
Hmm. You just had me thinking if thatâs true or not. I think money is an interesting thing. Inherently, it has no value, itâs not rare, itâs not useful. It is only useful because we as a society believe that it now has value. But thatâs more of a âwe all decided that money is now worth something.â Like⌠a question of definition.
Another is safety. A society that believes theyâre safe will probably have a lot less tension and infighting than a society that believes theyâre unsafe.
On the other hand, you might erroneously believe that a bike helmet makes you much safer in traffic, to the point where you may ride more recklessly than otherwise and therefore be less safe than if you hadnât worn a helmetâŚ
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i mean itâs also important to note that companies can blatantly lie
And Pepsi def be lying, no one likes that shit.
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[. . .]the ESPN expertsâ average prediction of 1.87 points. As it turns out, the Patriots won by 6 points, which even though it was more than six times greater than the expertâs prediction[. . .]
Math is hard.
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Marketing exists, network effects, first-mover advantage, pre-installed softwareâŚ
