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ThrustVectoring

Three logisticians just finished dinner, and the waitress comes up and asks "do y'all want dessert?"

The first logistician says "I don't know." The second also says "I don't know." The last says "yes, we would."

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"Logician". A logistician is someone who deals with logistics.

No. A logician is a lounge act that saws a log in half.

That's a boring act.

I've heard another variant of this joke:

A friend asks a programmer if they'd like to go bowling or go to the movies.

The programmer answers: "Yes".

obligatory reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/inclusiveor

That's... not another variant of that joke?

One is about "Or" statements and the other is about "And" statements.

All three logisticians needs to be "true/yes" and the first one didn't know about the two others so the logistician says "I don't know". If he didn't wanted dessert, he would have said "no".

Same thing for the second logistician.

The last logistician was able to say "yes, we would." because none of the other logistician said "no". Therefore, they all wanted dessert.

Still not a variant of the former joke. The latter is about the meaning of "or" in a logic or coding context vs its meaning in human languages.

They ask Lemmy Kilminster whether he likes more beer or women. He answers yes.

No - "hell yes". In fact, "Hell yeah".

It's Lemmy Kilminster, right?

I always found it funny how, in human language, when we say "or" we actually mean XOR, and had to invent "and/or" to be clear when we mean OR...

Forgive me for my ignorance, but I don't really understand this joke...

Is it something to do with the first 2 not knowing the preference of the others?

EDIT: never mind, this was also posted later in the thread and there's an explanation there.

If either of them didn't want dessert they would know that not all of them wanted dessert.

Yes. If they personally didn't want it, they'd say "no". As they're uncertain about the others, they say they don't know.

Then the final person knows the others all want yes, and personally wants yes, so says yes.

It's like lazy evaluation of booleans in if statements.

Nice this is my favourite so far!

Would you be kind and explain this joke please?

The waitress asked if they would ALL like dessert. If the first logician did NOT want dessert, then they could safely answer "no", because then it would not be the case that ALL of the logicians want dessert. Since they do not answer no, we can assume they do want dessert. The same follows for the second logician. The third (who also wants dessert) has heard their colleagues answer, and knows that if either of them did not want dessert they would have answered no, and can therefore now answer "yes, we would all like dessert".

thank you!

First of all, the joke makes no sense if you put a logistician instead of logician. Second, if you ask one person a question related to the opinions of all others, logically they can't answer yes or no, the only possible answer is "I don't know." Only when you reach the last person you have a chance of giving a definite answer.

Note the first logicians have to answer "I don't know" even if they don't wan't it, otherwise their statement becomes untrue.

   > Note the first logicians have to answer "I don't know"
   > even if they don't wan't it, otherwise their statement
   > becomes untrue.

No. "A && B && C" is only true when all three are true. If A knows it does not want, they can answer "no", because there is no way "ALL want" is true in that case.

Correct. I missed "all" in the joke.

The first two logisticians, each being a flawed human capable of error, might have answered "I don't know" despite not wanting dessert.

Obviously the third one has a flaw of not being able to see flaws in other people.

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