pdf23ds comments on Costs to (potentially) eternal life - Less Wrong

8 Post author: bgrah449 21 January 2010 09:46PM

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Comment author: pdf23ds 23 January 2010 12:31:44PM 2 points [-]

I don't have a problem with that usage. 0% or 100% can be used as a figure of speech when the proper probability is small enough that x < .1^n (4 (or something appropriate) < n) in 0+x or 1-x. If others are correct that probabilities that small or large don't really have much human meaning, getting x closer to 0 in casual conversation is pretty much pointless.

Of course, a "~0%" would be slightly better, if only to avoid the inevitable snarky rejoinder.