On 9/12/2017 1:09 PM, Charles Geilfuss wrote:
You mean like Houston where there have been three Hundred Year Floods in
two years.
A. These "100 year" events are just made up ideas. There is no defensible scientific basis for them. Even if there were
thousands of years of data to work with, the state of the place and variables is different now than yesterday, let alone
all that history.
B. Even if they were "real", the way probability works is so antithetical to the way our minds work that we tend deeply
misunderstand it.
If you flip a coin millions of times and don't get several instances of hundreds, even thousands, of head or tails in a
row, the behavior is likely not really probabilistic. (Ya gotta do the math I no longer remember to know.)
Just because you get three "100 year" events in one year, you can't expect a balancing lack in subsequent years, at
least anytime soon.
Just seen Red on the wheel for the 100th time in a row. What are the odds of Black on the next spin? Still 18/38, 47.4
%, but our minds tend to think it's very high.
Human memory is faulty in many ways. We just had a wet year here after several years of "severe" drought. Everybody was
talking as though it was an unprecedented event, many saying it was a sign of Global Warming/Climate change.
And yet, they didn't have to run a pipeline across the San Rafael Bridge, to keep Marin from blowing away, as was done
in the drought of the mid '70s. Which was worse, in what ways? I don't care, because I know the next one will come, but
not when, and that it will be different than those.
We want stability, sense and predictability in a universe where that isn't the case over the time and space areas in
which we exist. So we make up stories and live by artificial rules that help us sleep at night and function during the
day. Nothing wrong with that. Excellent arguments have been made as to how these are evolutionary adaptations that
allowed our species to survive and flourish.
I have found that my life is easier and more enjoyable when I relax my attachment to the stories when they don't fit
what's happening.
No Stat Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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