RobinZ comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 03 September 2012 05:18AM

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Comment author: katydee 02 September 2012 09:01:21PM 32 points [-]

Lady Average may not be as good-looking as Lady Luck, but she sure as hell comes around more often.

Anonymous

Comment author: Omegaile 03 September 2012 08:35:56PM *  15 points [-]

Not always, since:

The average human has one breast and one testicle

Des McHale

In other words, the average of a distribution is not necessarily the most probable value.

Comment author: RobinZ 03 September 2012 09:03:23PM *  18 points [-]

In other words: expect Lady Mode, not Lady Mean.

Comment author: sketerpot 05 September 2012 09:47:03PM *  6 points [-]

Don't expect her, either. In Russian Roulette, the mode is that you don't die, and indeed that's the outcome for most people who play it. You should, however, expect that there's a very large chance of instadeath, and if you were to play a bunch of games in a row, that (relatively uncommon) outcome would almost certainly kill you.

(A similar principle applies to things like stock market index funds: the mode doesn't matter when all you care about is the sum of the stocks.)

The real lesson is this: always expect Lady PDF.

Comment author: simplyeric 05 September 2012 05:31:56PM 5 points [-]

Not to be a bore but it does say "Lady Average" not "Sir or Madam Average".