(it's [that letting go of a pen will cause it to fall to the floor and not the ceiling] one of the few claims that really does deserve a subjective probability in the region of 99.9%).
Only three nines? This seems very underconfident. I would assign it more like twelve-nines confidence.
I was debating between that and 99.95% or even 99.99%, but 12 9s! Do you understand what that means! Do you really think that you cold make 1 trillion similar claims and only be wrong once? One trillion possible worlds, and it only goes up in one of them?
To put it differently, suppose Warren Buffet comes up to me, and suggests a game. I drop the pen, if it falls, I give him ten cents, otherwise, he gives me everything he owns (about $50 billion). By your estimate, he's ripping me off to the tune of about 5 cents, but I think I would accept the bet, which suggests my estimate is not as high.
Today's post, Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary was originally published on 20 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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