DanielLC comments on Open thread, Sept. 29 - Oct.5, 2014 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: polymathwannabe 29 September 2014 01:28PM

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Comment author: DanielLC 29 September 2014 08:26:32PM 6 points [-]

Wouldn't there be proportionately more shots fired if there's more people they see? You'd get the same number of friendly fire casualties either way.

Comment author: gjm 29 September 2014 09:07:27PM 2 points [-]

That would be a slightly less crude toy model, I guess. I would expect the truth to be somewhere in between -- e.g., soldiers have limited ammunition and limited ability to attend to everyone around them in a conflict situation, so the number of shots fired probably increases sublinearly with number of potential targets.

In case anyone was in any doubt: I have no knowledge of any of this stuff, have never served in any military force, etc.

Comment author: Vulture 30 September 2014 12:37:07AM 1 point [-]

Just because you think of a new factor driving it down and then a new factor driving it up doesn't mean you end up in the same place.

Comment author: DanielLC 30 September 2014 12:43:21AM 2 points [-]

The model I was using is that every time you see a soldier, you randomly decide whether or not to fire. Under this model, adding enemy soldiers makes no change in friendly fire.

Comment author: Vulture 30 September 2014 02:57:44AM 4 points [-]

Whoops, looks like I missed the word "proportionally" up there. Sorry for assuming that you were being silly.