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If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

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Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#91

Post by Izkata »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #75
moolcool wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analysis after the elections was interesting-- think pieces asking things like "How could the stats have been so wrong?!". A fair dice has a roughly 83% chance of landing on a number between 1 and 5, but if you roll a 6 you don't ask yourself the same question.

People are mixing up % of vote with likelihood of victory. If she was polling at 70% that would be an almost 100% chance of winning because a 20% swing is unlikely. However a 70% chance of victory is much much closer.

Exactly right, and you can see the polling percentage on the linked page; scroll down to "How the forecast has changed" and click the almost-looks-like-a-button "popular vote"; it was bouncing around 46-48% Clinton and 40-44% Trump (and 5-8% Johnson).

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#92

Post by fjsolwmv »

asfasgasg wrote: post #81
hanoz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most folks took 70% to mean that she would certainly win and were bitterly disappointed the morning after. Surely, given the outcome, more of those folks were pleasantly surprised at the outcome than "bitterly disappointed".

Given that Clinton won the popular vote, and by a substantial margin, it is probable that more people were disappointed.

The margin was not "substantial". She didn't even get a majority of the vote.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#93

Post by c3534l »

Reedx wrote: post #85
crispyambulance wrote: post #11

It depends on the context. Hillary Clinton had a >70% of winning the US presidential election according to the most responsible analyses (see 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ ). Most folks took 70% to mean that she would certainly win and were bitterly disappointed the morning after. On the other hand no sane person would (willingly) play Russian roulette with a 70% or even 5 of 6 cha…

> according to the most responsible analyses (see 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ ) Yeah, it was amazing to see the storm of hate that poured down on Nate Silver as a result. Thousands of people calling him a fraud (and worse), saying they would never trust him again, etc. Even if he had said there was a 99% chance, that still leaves 1%!

What's worse is before the election, 538 was getting massive heat for over-estimating the likelihood of Trump winning. People see what they want to see and rewrite the history accordingly.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#94

Post by fjsolwmv »

tgb wrote: post #15
kashyapc wrote: post #6

That impreciseness is one reason why William Zinsser in his book, On Writing Well , argues: - "Get rid of the adjective-by-habit." - "Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident."

Why not just say "with timidities"?

"little" calls to mind "litter".

One big tinidit in the preface wouldn't be so annoying to read.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#95

Post by fjsolwmv »

resu_nimda wrote: post #19
kashyapc wrote: post #6

That impreciseness is one reason why William Zinsser in his book, On Writing Well , argues: - "Get rid of the adjective-by-habit." - "Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident."

"Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident." This is a separate issue, and one I would disagree with. In fact I feel like this is a problematic attitude in our culture. Too many people overconfidently asserting their subjective viewpoints. Real life is full of nuance, gray area, second-guessing, and different perspectives; simple bold assertions usually don't hold water. David…

That's tautological. DFW is considered great by people who like DFW's style.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#96

Post by fjsolwmv »

hueving wrote: post #48
jmount wrote: post #14

Another fun one: Fermi's definition of "remote possibility" as a chance of no more than 1 in 10. (Scary when talking about the odds of initiating a chain reaction, making a small atomic weapon, or even igniting the atmosphere in the first atomic test.) https://books.google.com/books?id=2G2TlJOhGI8C&pg=PA280&lpg=...

0 in 10 is still "no more than 1 in 10", so I don't see why that's scary.

0.9 in 10 is also no more than 1 in 10.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#97

Post by c3534l »

twiss wrote: post #2

Using numbers for probabilities is not a panacea either, when those numbers are not the result of a calculation. One person might say "99% of the time" to mean "almost always", and another person might say "9 out of 10 times" to mean exactly the same thing. The problem is that it's hard to estimate the probability of something that you know happens "almost always" without doing the counting, which most people don't d…

A good example of this is ratings on Amazon. You can give up to five stars, but most people just give 1 or 5 depending on if they were satisfied or dissatisfied. Additionally, people confuse precision for certainty and will perceive an estimate of 89.1% as more accurate than 90%.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#98

Post by fjsolwmv »

safgasCVS wrote: post #55

"Lesson 1: Use probabilities instead of words to avoid misinterpretation." Probabilities are meaningless unless it’s a repeatable experiment otherwise its a ludic fallacy eg "There's a 70% chance of Hillary winning". This is an un-provable statement. Either she wins and prediction was right, or she loses and it counts as part of the 30%. This is Nate Silver's get-out-of-jail-free card so even when he's wrong he comes…

Nate silver makes hundreds of predictions every year. You can compute his average and error in his estimates.

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#99

Post by 2bitencryption »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #95
resu_nimda wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident." This is a separate issue, and one I would disagree with. In fact I feel like this is a problematic attitude in our culture. Too many people overconfidently asserting their subjective viewpoints. Real life is full of nuance, gray area, second-guessing, and different perspectives; simple bold assertions usually don't hold water. David…

That's tautological. DFW is considered great by people who like DFW's style.

huh? you can "dislike his style" but you couldn't possibly use that as evidence that it isn't a masterpiece.

I "dislike Shakespeare's style", I guess that makes it a tautology if you were to say he was great just because you like his style?

Re: If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?

#100

Post by Izkata »

c3534l wrote: post #97
twiss wrote: post #2

Using numbers for probabilities is not a panacea either, when those numbers are not the result of a calculation. One person might say "99% of the time" to mean "almost always", and another person might say "9 out of 10 times" to mean exactly the same thing. The problem is that it's hard to estimate the probability of something that you know happens "almost always" without doing the counting, which most people don't d…

A good example of this is ratings on Amazon. You can give up to five stars, but most people just give 1 or 5 depending on if they were satisfied or dissatisfied. Additionally, people confuse precision for certainty and will perceive an estimate of 89.1% as more accurate than 90%.

Your examples are kinda funny, because that could easily be true. Now, if the second one was 90.0% on the other hand...
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