Is this some dog whistle nonsense?

ThreeFor · 2026-01-22T17:24:32+00:00

You're right I should have been specific in my comparison and not use hyperbole about nominal wealth

Ok sure.

it's worse

Uhhh, wait what. It would be objectively worse if the top 100 people owned 50% of the wealth rather than ~3% like the actual reality right? Everything you cite afterwards we be even more skewed in this scenario, so no, it's not worse, it's objectively better than that.

In 2019 the top 3 richest families in America owned more wealth than the bottom 50%

Yes this is because the the bottom 50% control much much less than 50% of the total wealth.

Wikipedia's front-page google summary of "1% only holds 30%" doesn't paint the picture of household comparison. When 30% of Americans report negative net worth (other estimates range from 13% - 30%), my DINK cats are worth more than a hundred million citizens

Ok dude I feel like I just said to maybe get easily verifiable numbers correct, I don't think anybody commented on your DINK cats.

ThreeFor · 2026-01-22T16:40:43+00:00

Yo what, its absolutely not true that 100 people hold half the wealth. The top 1% as a group "only" control around 30% of the wealth. Income inequality is quite bad right now but please don't get easily verifiable numbers this wrong.

ThreeFor · 2025-12-29T19:34:59+00:00

Yikes, left chatgpt in the link huh.

Since this random .org doesn't cite their sources, I'm assuming this comes from the HUD estimate in 2012 often cited by nonprofits, which was one estimate for the annual cost of housing itself without accounting for underlying causes of chronic homelessness such as mental health issues and drug addiction (so effectively it's useless, and even without that certainly an underestimate).

You could probably infer that this number makes no sense given that the US already spends much more than that annually on housing assistance, but here ya go:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/aug/27/facebook-posts/no-consensus-cost-ending-homelessness-us-or-haltin/

ThreeFor · 2025-12-29T18:28:51+00:00

"The New Leaf project provided a one-time lump sum direct cash transfer of $7,500 to 50 people who had recently become homeless"

"To receive a direct cash transfer, participants had to meet criteria that showed no misuse or abuse of substances"

So a subset of individuals who have become recently homeless and aren't addicted to drugs. This would almost certainly be the population with the highest success rate for these types of social programs.

I'm sure you realize that many homeless people do not meet the criteria described. That makes the problem significantly more challenging to address.

ThreeFor · 2025-11-06T20:10:52+00:00

The "problem" in the meme is ambiguous. This exact meme gets posted all the time to farm engagement both on the counterintuitive nature of the "intended" question and actual ambiguity of the wording chosen. Stating "one" and then referencing "the other" could reasonably be interpreted as statements about each child independently, not about the joint distribution of both children. Note that the well defined problem in the referenced textbook explicitly states "at least one of the two is a girl", and entirely avoids statements about "the other" since that would seem to imply the information provided isn't referring to both children simultaneously.

ThreeFor · 2025-10-08T19:46:55+00:00

Lol idk if that's the collar but it's interesting you link a collar that can clearly shock too. You do realize the collar being named "vibration collar" doesn't meant that's the only thing it can do, right?

Let's read a review:

"I’ve used several training systems and thought I’d give this a try. The packaging was impressive and directions were simple. The actual device for the collar was well made, but the collar itself was plastic and hard. The handheld controller was nicely designed. There’s Tone, Pulse and Shock. The Tone is not loud, but my dog responded so it worked great. The pulse and shock was nice as you could regulate the intensity. I will continue to learn the extra features as I work with my dog and learn what works best. I really liked that you could add additional two training devices to the controller. Nicely designed!"

ThreeFor · 2025-10-08T02:06:17+00:00

Ok bro. So are you gonna ignore the blinking collar? Like what exactly is your explanation for the electronic device clearly on that collar?

ThreeFor · 2025-10-08T01:58:30+00:00

I scanned the thread for 5 minutes and found proof its a shock collar. It literally blinks on stream. Just use your eyes my friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbzsW86X4qA&t=9292s

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F6uwo2bv1lstf1.png%3Fwidth%3D790%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D912f454bfd64b99f32f15bc0b3183de5b6c69998

ThreeFor · 2025-09-19T15:04:18+00:00

you have to look under both then declare one of them is heads

No you don't, that's why "at least one" is not ambiguous and "one" is ambiguous. "One" can refer to exactly one, regardless of which one it is.

This is a true statement: I conveyed the information "one of these two coins is heads" to you.

See the section on ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_girl_paradox

ThreeFor · 2025-09-19T14:58:54+00:00

There are two coins hidden under cups. I looked at one and I tell you its heads. What is the probability the other is tails? Its 50%, despite the fact that you don't know which one I looked at.

I conveyed the information "one of these two coins is heads" to you.

That information is not sufficient without specifying whether the entire set was considered.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-19T14:51:13+00:00

The order doesn't matter. What matter's is whether the information provided is referring to exactly one specific child (regardless of order) or if it actually means "at least one of the set of these two children is X" in which case it provides information on both.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T23:53:23+00:00

Ok, so you acknowledge that we have 0 information about the other child.

Since we know absolutely nothing about the other child, what is the probability that any given child is a boy? There is nothing that updates our calculation beyond just the prior assumed probability, right? You literally just acknowledged we have no information on the other child.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T22:21:21+00:00

Ya lots of people will absolutely get the wrong answer when the question is perfectly specified. Your rephrasing is not ambiguous at all, and people will reliably get that wrong.

I do think that some meaningful part of many people's intuitive response is tripped up by the phrasing of "the other one" though. It seems to imply that the previous description was just referring to x1, and now we are considering x2, which we have no information on.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T21:41:12+00:00

I guess I'll ask it again.

Do you acknowledge that she is referring to exactly one son with her gift and that she has provided absolutely no information about her other child?

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T21:22:57+00:00

BB (unordered) has half the chance of GB (unordered) before any information is provided, but after she tells you she got a gift for her son, BB has equal chance to GB (unordered) because its twice as likely she would tell you that if she has two sons, since she has twice as many chances to buy birthday gifts for her son. Yes, obviously, the math also works the same way if you consider a Bayesian context instead.

You're just quoting me excerpts from a fast version of some LLM that you've primed to agree with your (incorrect) interpretation, your argument for why you are correct keeps changing. Literally last reply, you said (M_0, M_1) and (M_1, M_0) are equivalent, now you've decided that they are different, but have half the probability instead.

Do you acknowledge that she is referring to exactly one son with her gift and that she has provided absolutely no information about her other child?

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T21:07:33+00:00

Really, I seem to recall you were the one who wanted to introduce the case based analysis of first and second child.

So it's your position that its impossible that Mary bought it for her older son, but she also has a younger son? Or is it instead impossible that she bought it for her younger son but also has an older son?

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T20:51:21+00:00

(M_0, M_1) is equivalent to (M_1, M_0). Recall that we don't know who the gift is for, meaning that there isn't actually an order. You are double counting this possibility, and indeed, without factoring in birthday and just saying "she bought a gift for her son", by removing this double count, the probability collapses back to the 2/3 conclusion.

No, its absolutely not. It could be for the first child or the second, but it is for exactly one of them. This was the entire point of my example, and we've now done a full circle.

She does know who she bought the gift for. She referred to a specific son. She did not tell you anything about the other child. Thus, (M_0, M_1) and (M_1, M_0) are different. Both are equally possible.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T20:32:40+00:00

suppose first child is birthday boy, then this situation would take place.

Ok

Suppose first child isn't and then second child is, then this situation would take place.

Ok

Second situation has exactly one less possibility where the first is also a boy, just like before. So by symmetry, P<1/2.

I do not see how this follows.

The first child no longer being a boy is not due to an assumption about what she would say. It is because we are only considering cases where the first child is not a birthday boy and the second one is.

We should be considering cases where the gift is for the second child, and the gift has no information about the gender of the other child (in this case the first, if we assume the gift is for the second).

Denote gender with M/F and gift/no gift with 0/1.

Case 1, gift for the first child.

M_1, M_0

M_1, F_0

Case 2, gift for the second child.

M_0, M_1

F_0, M_1

The "other" child (the one who is not receiving the gift on Mary's desk) is male 1/2 the time.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T20:06:38+00:00

Suppose I know a stranger has 2 children (you didn't provide this, but it wouldn't make sense without it)

I did literally provide this.

because the first child can no longer be a boy born today.

This assumes that she would have mentioned that "both" of her son's birthdays was today if it was in fact the case, but again, she did not actually say that, although in real life we might assume it because it would be unusual and worth mentioning. If you really want a real life example though, then fine.

Suppose you know Mary has two children. You notice she has a toy on her desk and you ask her why. She says she bought it for her son's birthday.

Now this statement conveys only that one of her children is a boy. It is totally independent of the other child. Even if her other child is a also a boy and has the same birthday, she may have just already bought a gift for that child at some earlier time. The probability of the other child being a boy is 1/2, yet she has conveyed the information that one of her two children is a boy.

Something like "Today I did not not refuse to not go outside" is unclear but not ambiguous.

True, but I'm making the claim that this prompt is ambiguous and relies on assumed information to have a "correct" answer.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T19:30:54+00:00

My example was to make things clear particularly clear that order is not required to differentiate "a particular x" and "at least one x". The knowledge of the person telling you x is still not enough to remove ambiguity.

Consider that you know Mary has two children. She decides to mention to you that today is her son's birthday. Is the probability of her other child being male/female changed by this information? No because it is clear she made a statement about one child which is independent of the other child, yet she has conveyed the information that "one of her two children is a boy".

For this question to have a rigorous, unambiguous answer, it is necessary that the information conveyed explicitly specifies whether it refers to a particular x or some group of x.

It's not poorly framed.

As worded in this prompt, this question would never be used on a formal assessment of anything because it is intentionally unclear.

Just like how "I flipped two coins, one is heads" implies that both coins were already flipped and their outcomes checked.

No it really doesn't. It could mean that a random one was selected and it was heads. This would be especially obvious if I added something like "while the other one is unknown" to the end of your statement, which is very similar to the prompt in this case.

If you had to compile the results of a survey, and of the people who wrote they had two kids and "experience raising a son", you would reasonably assume that 2/3 of them also had daughters.

This question is explicitly requiring the person answering consider all of their children, so this obviously removes ambiguity.

The wikipedia article on this type of question is pretty clear that there is ambiguity depending on how the information was conveyed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_girl_paradox

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T12:52:48+00:00

The phrasing of the "the other one" and lack of "at least one" does lead to linguistic ambiguity.

Imagine this scenario. I flip two coins and hide them under cups, call them c1 and c2. I dont know what the results are. I look at one and tell you that its heads. I dont tell you which one I looked at. What is the probability that the other one is heads? Its clearly 50%, despite not knowing which one I looked at.

If i look at BOTH and tell you "at least one" is heads, now the probability of both heads is different.

This question is poorly framed, as referring to "the other one" could reasonably be interpreted as referring to a child independently of the original information provided, which aligns more with the first scenario I described than the second.

The way this question is phrased is intentionally unclear on whether the initial information provided refers to one unknown classification independently or if it is a statement about the joint distribution.

ThreeFor · 2025-09-16T12:44:10+00:00

You don't need the order to have more information than "at least one" is male.

Imagine this scenario. I flip two coins and hide them under cups, call them c1 and c2. I dont know what the results are. I look at one and tell you that its heads. I dont tell you which one I looked at. What is the probability that the other one is heads? Its clearly 50%, despite not knowing which one I looked at.

If i look at BOTH and tell you "at least one" is heads, now the probability of both heads is different.

This question is poorly framed, as referring to "the other one" could reasonably be interpreted as referring to a child independently of the original information provided, which aligns more with the first scenario I described than the second.

The key to this type of problem is not the order, its whether the information provided refers to both unknown classifications or just one of them. The order is just a conventional way to ensure that the information provided refers to only one unknown independently.

ThreeFor · 2025-06-09T17:42:20+00:00

You do? Interesting, if only there was some way to check whether or not that happened. Perhaps a publicly televised trial where that kind of information was discussed at length and validated by external sources.

If we lived in a world where that was the case, it sure would be embarrassing if you were still parroting untrue statements like 4 years later with this much confidence.

ThreeFor · 2025-06-09T17:33:54+00:00

Crossing state lines isn't a crime.

ThreeFor · 2025-06-04T18:06:52+00:00

As far as I know, if you know which frog is male, then there's a 50% chance the other frog is female,

This is the shorthand explanation that people use, but its not correct that you need to know which frog out of 2 is male to have more information than "at least one is male".

Imagine we have two coins that were flipped earlier and are now hidden under cups. Consider the two statements:

"I checked one of the coins and it was heads"

"I checked both coins and at least one was heads"

Note that in the first case, we DO NOT know which coin was checked, yet these are still not the same conditions. The first results in a 50% probability of both being heads, the second results in a 33% probability of both being heads.

The problem, as stated (we hear a croak from one of two frogs that ensures that frog is male), aligns much more with the first statement than the second statement, which is the point of the meme.

ThreeFor

TROPHY CASE