Elon Musk doesn't understand geometry • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk doesn't understand geometry

#31

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #29

Freedom2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What evidence do you have to back up your claim that the user has fallen victim to this paradox?

Using your experience as a passenger to gauge how full buses usually are is about as straightforward of an example of that paradox as you could ask for. As an extreme example, imagine there are 10 bus routes, 9 of which are always empty and 1 of which is always full. If you surveyed every passenger, they'd tell you that 100% of the buses they've ever been on are full, but in reality, only 10% of the buses are.

You know you can just look this stuff up, right? The major urban transport systems publish data on this; it's how they decide which routes to cut and which to beef up.

Re: Elon Musk doesn't understand geometry

#32

Post by josephcsible » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #31

josephcsible wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your experience as a passenger to gauge how full buses usually are is about as straightforward of an example of that paradox as you could ask for. As an extreme example, imagine there are 10 bus routes, 9 of which are always empty and 1 of which is always full. If you surveyed every passenger, they'd tell you that 100% of the buses they've ever been on are full, but in reality, only 10% of the buses are.

You know you can just look this stuff up, right? The major urban transport systems publish data on this; it's how they decide which routes to cut and which to beef up.

I know. My point is that that's what you need to do, rather than trying to use (anec)data from passengers' perspectives, as the post I originally replied to did.

Re: Elon Musk doesn't understand geometry

#33

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jul 07, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #32

tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you can just look this stuff up, right? The major urban transport systems publish data on this; it's how they decide which routes to cut and which to beef up.

I know. My point is that that's what you need to do, rather than trying to use (anec)data from passengers' perspectives, as the post I originally replied to did.

In Chicago, where I live, route cutbacks are major drama. If nobody is riding the busses, as the ancestor comment suggests, the routes get cut. You know that's happening because people are constantly pissed about it. It was that comment making the extraordinary claim, and ordinary evidence is sufficient to refute it.

Re: Elon Musk doesn't understand geometry

#34

Post by hooverd » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

fooker wrote: post #23

enraged_camel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Can you give examples?

Suppose you want to force people to drive less — you increase gas prices with a tax. Citing this extra tax, some lawmaker spends money on something completely irrelevant that was lobbied to them. Public transport is a fairly distant concern for most of them. Oil companies increase crude prices to get on the gravy train, so does every other entity in the industry. Car dealerships jack up prices because they want to ma…

Nah, you do congestion pricing in cities where transit is feasible.