Suspicious Discontinuities
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Suspicious Discontinuities
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Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#2The youth sports discontinuity was a problem for me when I became old enough to play little league, but was exploited by me when I should have moved on to Teener League.
I was born on the cut-off date for Little League, so I was the youngest player on the team my first year (and the youngest for my grade the other years.) Do to ambiguity in how the cut-off date wording was written, I ended up (legally) playing a fourth year when I was 13. I was never a big kid but at this point I was certainly bigger than all the 10 year-olds and more importantly had gained coordination and experience. It was my favorite year playing baseball.
(As an aside, I paid karma for it the next year ... I spent eighth grade in a city Teener League where I was once again the smallest, least experienced kid. And the city league was way more cut-throat than what I'd experienced in the suburban setting my previous four years.)
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#3The youth sports discontinuity was a problem for me when I became old enough to play little league, but was exploited by me when I should have moved on to Teener League. I was born on the cut-off date for Little League, so I was the youngest player on the team my first year (and the youngest for my grade the other years.) Do to ambiguity in how the cut-off date wording was written, I ended up (legally) playing a four…
I was always small until about age 16, and I always sucked at sports and never really got into them - partly as a result.
I wonder if we shouldn't group kids by size for sporting activities instead of by age.
There's a famous statistic in Canada that NHL players are much more likely to be born in January and February than September-December. The reason being is they were nearly a year older than other kids they were paired with, so they did better at the sport and thus kept it up as they grew.
Seems silly.
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#4The Economist recently had some more detailed plots on the crack cocaine discontinuities: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/01/18/smoking-...
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#5Any rules that can be gamed, sooner or later, inevitably, will be gamed.
The "suspicious discontinuities" shown in this fantastic post are evidence for it.
It seems to be an Iron Law of Human Nature.
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#6The youth sports discontinuity was a problem for me when I became old enough to play little league, but was exploited by me when I should have moved on to Teener League. I was born on the cut-off date for Little League, so I was the youngest player on the team my first year (and the youngest for my grade the other years.) Do to ambiguity in how the cut-off date wording was written, I ended up (legally) playing a four…
I was always small until about age 16, and I always sucked at sports and never really got into them - partly as a result. I wonder if we shouldn't group kids by size for sporting activities instead of by age. There's a famous statistic in Canada that NHL players are much more likely to be born in January and February than September-December. The reason being is they were nearly a year older than other kids they were…
>I wonder if we shouldn't group kids by size for sporting activities instead of by age.
Depending on how small your buckets are, you may end up with a scarcity problem (players and admins/coaches). Also, age matters a lot in regards to coordination. A 13 year old who is roughly the size as a ten year old will, on average, have a large advantage.
Some people just aren't cut out for athletics genetically. Some grow later on and may or may not be interested. Age seems like a fair sorting criteria and general enough to not introduce too much complexity.
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was always small until about age 16, and I always sucked at sports and never really got into them - partly as a result. I wonder if we shouldn't group kids by size for sporting activities instead of by age. There's a famous statistic in Canada that NHL players are much more likely to be born in January and February than September-December. The reason being is they were nearly a year older than other kids they were…
>I wonder if we shouldn't group kids by size for sporting activities instead of by age. Depending on how small your buckets are, you may end up with a scarcity problem (players and admins/coaches). Also, age matters a lot in regards to coordination. A 13 year old who is roughly the size as a ten year old will, on average, have a large advantage. Some people just aren't cut out for athletics genetically. Some grow lat…
> A 13 year old who is roughly the size as a ten year old will, on average, have a large advantage.
This is an interesting claim. How much is a large advantage? Do you mean in hockey specifically? Or in athletics? Or any given task?
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#8The statistics on the amount of cocaine show an appalling pattern of lying and false evidence from the police.
It's even more appalling that people hardly acknowledge such bias.
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#9The statistics on the amount of cocaine show an appalling pattern of lying and false evidence from the police. It's even more appalling that people hardly acknowledge such bias.
Please do not jump to conclusions and read the footnote which addresses that point explicitly: "drug seizure records, amounts seized do not appear to be the cause of this change."
Re: Suspicious Discontinuities
#10> One reason people were looking for ways to lose money was that, in the U.S., there's a hard income cutoff for a health insurance subsidy at $48,560 for individuals (higher for larger households; $100,400 for a family of four). There are a number of factors that can cause the details to vary (age, location, household size, type of plan), but across all circumstances, it wouldn't have been uncommon for an individual going from one side of the cut-off to the other to have their health insurance cost increase by roughly $7200/yr. That means if an individual buying ACA insurance was going to earn $55k, they'd be better off reducing their income by $6440 and getting under the $48,560 subsidy ceiling than they are earning $55k.
This is an incredibly dumb way to structure things.