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Comment by johncoltrane | Hacker News Reader

A 3.1% chance of _anything_, good or bad, is negligible.

No?

It's more than half the probability of getting a critical in D&D, which is something that happens all the time.

If during a particular day you judge that you have a 3.1% chance of running into another car due to winter weather and no winter tyres, you leave the car home that day.

When managing risks, the likelihood of something happening is only half the equation, you also need to consider the impact when it happens. A 3.1% probability of a catastrophic outcome is a high, and possibly unacceptable level of risk.

We also must consider that the likelihood for this specific event has been increasing, no one says this is as high as it goes.

> We also must consider that the likelihood for this specific event has been increasing, no one says this is as high as it goes.

As the measurement of the asteroid's position and velocity becomes more accurate, it's going to increase (still possible with smaller error bars on the measurement) or be set to zero.

Yes but keep in mind that due to how trajectories are determined, the probability will keep going up until it suddenly drops to zero once its refined enough (i.e. the cone of futures can shrink while still including Earth - just less of Earth - for a while before suddenly it's accurate enough that it doesn't).

> A 3.1% chance of _anything_, good or bad, is negligible.

Only if your definition of negligible is <= 3.1%. In many context, those are unacceptable odds.

Your comment reminds me of: https://bash-org-archive.com/?2999

What would you need to be paid to accept a 3 percent risk in Russian Roulette?

700k after tax

A man that knows his value!

Death is certain. Making $1M in a single shot is anything but.

The best way I've found to grasp an applied understanding of percentages at large scales for any layperson is to think of spelling errors by the percentage of words in a book.

3.1/100 sounds negligible at first, doesn't it? But now think about if every 3 words per 100 in a book were misspelt.

Think about how much more critical this would be in safety situations. What about 3 of every 100 cars getting in an accident on the nearest interstate highway by your home? Surely in one day that would be a historical amount in any major metro. It would be national news.

If your plane had a 3.1% chance of crashing, would you get on?

Yes.

Say that to all the Ironman XCom games I've had ruined by a missed 99% shot.

If you were told, by a credible source, that there was a 3.1% chance that you'd be eaten by a tiger the next time you stepped outside your door, you'd probably be at least a little nervous.

3% chance of it happening this time is not much.

But with enough repeats over time, it eventually becomes inevitable.

or, if there is any likelyhood of there bieng 32 more such asteroids, now, it is inevitable but to pose a significant risk to a habitated place, would take many more than 33 asteroids then there is luck, call it further uncertinty if you must but what we can predict with 100% certainty is increased budgets for space defence, and lots of start up rocket companys pivoting in that direction

Negligible is definitely not in the 3% range, that's a 1/33 odd, the odds of a professional bowler doing a perfect game are 1/460 and those games happen quite often.

I don't think you understand statistics.

Unless their estimations are wrong

There are large error bars right now. The percentages will likely increase and increase as the error bars reduce and the earth takes up a larger and larger space in the potential zone it can pass through.

Up until the earth is outside that zone and the chance drops to zero. So expect the "percentage chance" to keep rising until they have enough to data to rule it out entirely.

Why can't they get all that over with now and say what they think the actual chance is?

I think you'll find that what's been said is the best current knowledge.

Why can't astronomy be a more exact science? Well, how much are you willing to contribute to launching more space telescopes for this? And is the budget for NASA currently increasing or not? ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43090862 )

Cities on the impact path could be asked for funding.

I can tell you haven't played any mmos lol. That's not a bad droprate

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