fubarobfusco comments on Problems in Education - Less Wrong
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Once the poll is made, the answers cannot be edited. The difference was supposed to mean approximately a) I don't believe this could ever happen, b) I believe it can happen exceptionally, but not all the time as the author claims, c) I believe this can be the way system works.
In other words, the second option is like: "I believe that with so many grant proposals, once in a while a crazy thing passes unnoticed; but I don't believe that it happens all the time, not even half of the time -- you have probably seen one or two bad cases, and now you exaggerate to make your case more appealing".
That sounds very different from "This story seems like a very exaggerated version of true events". One is about frequency (how often do things in the author's intended reference class occur?) while the other is about severity (how bad are the events that actually happened to the author?)