I don't get the stats here:
- I am an ordinary sentient being (for the sake of argument... just nod)
- I am a member of an ordinary species.
according this theory one of these statements is wrong.
- I am an ordinary sentient being (for the sake of argument... just nod)
- I am a member of an ordinary species.
according this theory one of these statements is wrong.
Hypothetically, let's imagine there were 10 normal-sized planets with 10 people each, and 1 big planet with 1 million. In this scenario everyone is either on a strange (big) planet, or they are on a normal planet but they are not typical individuals, because over 99% live on the big planet.
- I am an ordinary human
- I live in an ordinary country
One of these is wrong, and it's the second one.
So what about:
- Humans are an ordinary species
- Humans live in an ordinary galaxy
Does that change our relative height?
If most species looked at themselves and said "my species is ordinary" the majority of them would be right; however, it doesn't give you any statistical reason to think that humans are ordinary.
The counter-intuitiveness of it all is really intriguing. We really are evolved to think in small numbers.
btw fergussimpson your posts are showing up dead but then are getting undeaded after a certain period of time I guess. Your first post here was dead for a while and now it isn't. Your reply to this parent is dead as of writing this post. I guess it's because you have a new account - I wasn't aware we were auto-hellbanning people now, though. How annoying.
You should rapidly become considered a normal user, but I'm told emailing HN is what you do if you continue to be auto marked dead.
You need a karma level of 30 for the flag / vouch links to appear. You need to have showdead turned on to see the comments that have been flagged.
Here are two comments from dang about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10638699
Hth.