“Big” and “small” shift their meaning in context in ways we are aware of, and not aware of.
Things like “almost always”, “nearly guaranteed”, “effectively never” also adjust their meaning relative to context in ways we are not aware of.
There isn’t a solution to different people having different instincts about these numbers, except being aware of the issue, and not trying to project one person’s intuitions as being the “right” intuitions.
I strongly suspect that what's going on here is not that a bunch of commenters are happy to agree with statements like "in craps, you're pretty much guaranteed not to roll 7" or "when you hit in blackjack, you're pretty much guaranteed not to get a face card".
Rather, they're making the statements they do because they feel that 17 one-in-seventeen chances must add up to one 100% chance, or because they can't tell the difference between 50% and 75%, and they don't feel like checking to see whether the things they're saying make any sense.
Comments
“Big” and “small” shift their meaning in context in ways we are aware of, and not aware of.
Things like “almost always”, “nearly guaranteed”, “effectively never” also adjust their meaning relative to context in ways we are not aware of.
There isn’t a solution to different people having different instincts about these numbers, except being aware of the issue, and not trying to project one person’s intuitions as being the “right” intuitions.
I strongly suspect that what's going on here is not that a bunch of commenters are happy to agree with statements like "in craps, you're pretty much guaranteed not to roll 7" or "when you hit in blackjack, you're pretty much guaranteed not to get a face card".
Rather, they're making the statements they do because they feel that 17 one-in-seventeen chances must add up to one 100% chance, or because they can't tell the difference between 50% and 75%, and they don't feel like checking to see whether the things they're saying make any sense.