Funny thing is this is a language issue, not a math issue.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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Why not both?
I've always thought of math as a language and I talk to my kids about it that way too. Math is an other way to describe the world.
It's very different from spoken languages and translating between the two needs to be learned and practiced.
Our math education doesn't include enough word problems and it should be bi-directional. In addition to teaching students how to write equations based of sentences we should teach them how to describe what's going on in an equation.
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Can't believe nobody has linked the relevant xkcd yet
Which of course is why people referred to points when discussing stocks/markets. Got to love an unambiguous term.
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Why lying with maths is so easy, the average person, even in developed countries is practically innumerate (massive hyperbole, but the fact lying with numbers is easy, still stands)
Having two possible outcomes does not mean it's a 50:50 chance.
"So if I aim the arrow at the 1cm square from 100m away and shoot, I either hit it or I don't. So basically I have a 50% chance of hitting it."
My wife, father-in-law and I were playing a board game with my brother-in-law. In this game, we were playing as detectives who have to try to find his character, but each turn he could move in secret in one of several directions. We were a few turns in at one point and he could have been in any of dozens of places at this point. We drove him nuts by saying "he's either in this spot or he's not, it's a 50-50 chance." He kept arguing "I could be in a ton of places! It's not a 50-50 chance!" But we just kept pretending we didn't understand and arguing that there were only two possibilities, he's there or he's not, so it was clearly a 50-50 chance. He got quite angry.
Scotland Yard or Letters from Whitechapel?
I love Scotland Yard. We got it for a friend who loves detective stories. Then discovered that it’s a public transit simulator which is even better.
Honestly, Letters From Whitechapel is a better design of the same concept.
For detective story games, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is amazing.
And for public transit games, Bus is the way to go (probably)
On the other hand: Half of my lottery tickets were jackpots. I never played and have (1/2 * 0 = ) 0 jackpots.
The thing with that is that it's actually a useful generalization to make in a lot of scenarios.
If you know nothing about the distinction between two possible outcomes, treating them as equally likely is a helpful tool to continue with the back of the envelope guess. Knowing this path needs 5 coin tosses to go right and this one needs 10 is helpful to approximate which is better.
Your example is obviously outside the realm where you have zero information, so uniform distribution is no longer the reasonable default. But the idea is from a reasonable technique, taken to extremes by someone who doesn't fully get it.
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That's not even a stat question, it is a english question. It is an increase by 80% not to 80%
Statistics only come to play to figure out our new chances.
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When my son was about to be born my mother in law caught wind that we didn't plan on circumcising (before researching it I mostly felt it was just strange to do cosmetic surgery on a newborn) but her argument was mostly parroting the 50% reduction in this that and the other disease, missing the fact that it was going from a 0.5% chance to a 0.25% chance, but of course introduced new risks by nature of being a surgery.
Naturally after looking more into it I learned just how bonkers circumcision is so I was far more cemented in my position
The fact that it is even allowed in so-called civilized countries is outrageous. In the US it common because some religious nut was obsessed with children's masturbation.
Which is nuts, as a circumcised individual (medically necessary, my parents aren’t monsters) I masturbated A LOT as a teen.
it baffles me that anyone with a penis, or really anyone who knows what a penis actually is, would think it's a good idea
would people remove a child's eyelids? NO OF COURSE NOT holy shit
piercing flesh is generally to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, as is helpfully indicated to us by it being fucking painful
Wrong: I had a 1% chance, and I doubled my chances. Now my chances are 101%.
Right: I had a 1% chance, and I doubled my chances. Now my chances are 2%.
Wrighongt: I had a 1% chance, and I doubled my chances. Now my chances are 3%, because I'm a lucky person.
Sleep deprived fraction lover: I had a 1% chance, and I doubled my chances. Now due to 1/100 * 1/100 I chances are 0.0001%.
In the same vein, if the volume on your phone is on 1, and you increase it to 2, it has increased by 100%
i think
It's really pretty simple - if something increases by 80%, you add 80% of whatever it already is... one dollar becomes $1.80... one percent becomes 1.8 percent.
Most people don't understand it because they've seen it done wrong so often, the wrong way seems right.
I'm quite willing to bet that 70% of the population has no clue that percentages, fractions, and decimals are the same thing.
Then odds show up to the party and upend everything we thought we understood.
That's about 60% more than expected
In game design, it has to be stated whether it’s multiplicative or additive. Sometimes a logarithmic function is used as well, with increases in efficiency as 1 / ( 1 + bonus ). This allows you to always add more bonus, but there’s diminishing returns.
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huh, this feels pretty well established here in sweden: whenever people talk about stuff like elections it's consistently percentage points
People got this wrong about inflation as well. In 2020 there was actual deflation, and in 2021 there was very minimal inflation, meaning prices were still largely lower or similar as 2019. Then we saw 9% inflation in 2022. Total inflation in 2024 vs the 2019 benchmark was around 15%. Or 3% average per year, which is barely over the baseline. People just hear 9% inflation, completely missing the fact that this was a YoY number relative to the Trump recession.
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Convert percentage to fraction, i.e, 80% become 0.8 Then multiply with initial value
If it says 80% more use initial + (initial*80) or simply initial*1.8
Or if it says 80% less, use - in above calculation or multiply by 0.2
I find percentages more neat when used as fractional number Edited to escape the multiplication symbol
Convert percentage to fraction, i.e, 80% become 0.8
That's not a fraction.
⅘ is a fraction.
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