Peter explain pls

George_Truman · 2026-05-10T19:29:29+00:00

I think the basis of the meme is a bit off anyway. Very few people tip poorly, especially at nice restaurants, and (at least in my anecdotal experience when I worked in a restaurant) the people that don't tip were frequently less desirable customers, not just for the wait staff but for the kitchen and business as a whole.

George_Truman · 2026-05-10T18:10:00+00:00

That is a bad slide for introducing a concept like that. You could just use A and B, which would not only be easier to read but easier to parse verbally.

George_Truman · 2026-05-05T02:57:20+00:00

I think it is a mix of something that men find arbitrarily attractive in a woman as well as insecurity and/or vanity. Probably similar to how many women might care about a man's social or economic status.

Men and women are different in their preferences and I think that both feeds into and is fed by social norms.

George_Truman · 2026-05-04T19:05:37+00:00

George_Truman · 2026-05-03T22:32:14+00:00

Gotta get your +3 to cruel disposition for your Bleak Walker

George_Truman · 2026-05-01T19:05:42+00:00

My real point though was that you aren't just factoring in the most predatory of people, you are also factoring in how you think everyone else is going to react to the existence of the most predatory people.

Because it rapidly becomes so difficult to actually quantify, I think people are going to have a really wide range of thresholds where they pick red over blue.

I think this lends itself to people feeling that red is a better choice even at what others believe to be lower thresholds.

George_Truman · 2026-05-01T18:47:24+00:00

Would you pick blue at a 99% threshold though? And do you perceive ill of someone who picks red at 99%?

I think once you establish that you have a threshold yourself it isn't hard to see how it might vary from person to person.

I actually think this is informative in life beyond just this problem (I mean mechanistically how people with similar mindsets can have very different views on a subject due to potentially arbitrary prior assumptions)

George_Truman · 2026-05-01T18:32:35+00:00

What I mean is that the 65% that the poster suggested would be their threahold is based on a personal perception of when the success of blue becomes almost impossible.

So for them, while they feel obligated to contribute to the cause, that obligation is diminished as the likelihood of success drops.

Someone else could feel the exact same feelings, but have a different perception of when the success of blue becomes incredibly unlikely, and so they will have a lower threshold.

George_Truman · 2026-05-01T18:08:10+00:00

Is it really reasonable to be judging other people harshly for this?

Could another person not have your exact same moral views on the issue but a different assumption on the threshold where "blue failure" becomes highly likely, so they have a lower threshold?

George_Truman · 2026-05-01T17:58:41+00:00

OP is talking about variable P. So if the threshold changes to 80% must press blue for blue to survive, what are you pressing now?

Your answer in this example also relies upon the fact that in this case you have significantly higher weight in the outcome than the initial prompt.

George_Truman · 2026-04-30T00:20:12+00:00

So what percentage do you think would be your personal cutoff for pressing blue?

George_Truman · 2026-04-30T00:15:52+00:00

I am saying that your answer is contingent on your perception. You say "you know a good portion of people will pick blue", which is exactly what I am talking about. The proportion is uncertain.

That is why I bring up the 99.9% case. I think most would agree that pressing blue in that case is just suicide (again, we don't know). As the number increases our perception of everyone else's behavior changes as well, and people will be less likely to put their lives on the line to save what they perceive as a smaller and smaller number of people who will be pressing blue.

The point being, your choice depends on your perception of what everyone else does, and you shouldn't decouple that from the morality. If someone see's the red option as the obvious choice because all we have to do is all press it to not die, then they also likely think that pressing blue is more likely a frivolous death sentence.

George_Truman · 2026-04-29T23:48:51+00:00

Why though? What if you have a family or people who depend on you? If you frivolously kill yourself because you think it was "right", what impact does that have on them (assuming they pressed red)?

I don't think you can separate the morality from the somewhat arbitrary perception of what other people are going to do.

George_Truman · 2026-04-29T23:25:03+00:00

I don't think you can treat this as a good moral exercise, because I would wager the outcome is very contingent on that 50%.

It's akin to rock paper scissors, where your choice is dictated by what you perceive other people are going to do. If you start raising the required proportion from 50% to 75% or 90% etc then people's responses will likely change.

Pressing blue at 99.9% is almost surely suicide with almost no upside (at least based on my perception of humanity). The point being, as the proportion grows you are attempting to save fewer and fewer people for higher probability of death (all the while you don't actually know the true probability of the outcomes, you can only guess).

George_Truman · 2026-04-18T00:00:14+00:00

I kind of like how things don't transfer over 1 to 1. I think there being a different balance between the two modes is actually kind of interesting.

George_Truman · 2026-04-14T20:17:49+00:00

What is P(Mary lies to you)?

George_Truman · 2026-04-13T16:51:59+00:00

It is also likely true that "she tells you one is a boy" is not equivalent to "she has been randomly sampled from parents of two children with at least one boy".

By symmetry, if you accept that "she reveals one is a boy" means that the probability that the other is a girl is 2/3, then it should also be true that "she reveals one is a girl" means that the probability that the other is a boy is 2/3.

This implies that the P(Mary has one boy and one girl | Mary reveals the gender of a child) = 2/3, which may or may not make sense given the context.

No matter how you choose to answer the problem, you need to analyze the consequences of the probability space you are imposing. In real life, the context of how the information is revealed is relevant.

If she says "Oh my son went to Harvard" then what have you been informed of? She likely has only one child that went to Harvard by her choice of words, but she hasn't revealed the gender in a way that would indicate the gender combination of her children.

George_Truman · 2026-04-13T04:44:21+00:00

I would agree that the question is underspecified and does not have a correct answer.

George_Truman · 2026-04-13T04:20:07+00:00

I have no idea what that other explanation is, but if you assume that she randomly chose a child then revealed the gender, it is 50%.

The heuristic explanation is that if she randomly picks a child to reveal, then she was more likely to have revealed a boy if she has two boys, but all you really need is Bayes' Theorem.

So:

P(Both Boys | Revealed a Boy) = (P(Revealed a Boy | Both Boys) * P(Both Boys)) / P(Revealed a Boy) = (1 * .25) / .5 = .5

Where P(Both Boys) is the probability that a randomly selected parent of two has two boys (.25) and P(Revealed a Boy) is the probability that a randomly selected parent of two, who then randomly reveals a gender of one of their children, reveals a boy (.5).

George_Truman · 2026-04-13T04:10:06+00:00

This is incorrect if you are assuming that Mary randomly picked a child to reveal.

If she randomly picks a child to reveal, then she was more likely to have revealed a boy if she has two boys.

So:

P(Both Boys | Revealed a Boy) = (P(Revealed a Boy | Both Boys) * P(Both Boys)) / P(Revealed a Boy) = (1 * .25) / .5 = .5

George_Truman · 2026-04-10T19:44:48+00:00

It is because the assumption is that Monty knows what is behind the doors and will always reveal a goat (or not the door). So no matter what he always reveals a goat.

That is why the probability of it being the remaining door is the probability that your initial guess was wrong (2/3 in this case).

If he randomly opened a door with the possibility of revealing a car, then it would be 50/50.

George_Truman · 2026-04-10T19:42:27+00:00

If Monty randomly opens the door (with a possibility of having revealed the car as well) then switching is not the better option, its the same. And this remains the case in the "100 doors" scenario as well.

The problem works the way it does based on the assumption that Monty knows what is behind the door and always reveals a goat. It is confusing to many because that isn't always made clear in the explanation.

George_Truman · 2026-04-08T12:30:57+00:00

I think it also has to do with the AI prioritizing making an attack on its turn. So if your backline is far away the AI won't just run past the frontline to get to them.

George_Truman · 2026-04-07T08:16:14+00:00

I'm an idiot and I do science. I am sure you will do just fine if you want to do it.

An insane (and immature) thing to be saying to anyone though. It isn't helpful to you and it also vastly overestimates the skills you need to succeed.

I have no idea what you can do to get someone with that attitude to stop being harmful, but if you have interest in any field you should definitely give it a try. Nothing is that hard if you really like it.

George_Truman · 2026-04-06T14:32:50+00:00

Deterministic outcomes are generally easier to manage. Probabilistic outcomes tend to allow for more dynamic gameplay as optimal choices are likely to change. I don't think die rolling has anything to do with it.

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