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The answer to a question I never asked

The answer to a question I never asked

The answer to a question I never asked (h/t our long lost Kathleen).

The ‘Monty Hall Problem’:


And the country?

It picked Door No. 2, because math is hard.

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Comments

BannedbytheGuardian | March 28, 2013 at 9:26 pm

I would take the goat. Goats canbe terrific companions & are barter rich. You can always trade milk & clip their fleece to sell .

Or as the world disintegrates read it My Pet Goat .

I once spent 3 days naming a goat. This one looks very nice.

I’ve been thinking about the whole new media thing, and I don’t believe that the conservative message needs to be tattooed onto Lady Gaga’s butt or broadcast onto Twitter. New media is not our problem.

Our problem is that a large number of people don’t think about politics at all. In fact, they avoid it. If they have any information on a topic it is because they picked it up as a payload from some other source. Something they were interested in (a teacher, a movie, a headline they glanced at) had a payload of information (global warming!, guns bad!, Republicans stupid!). Lacking any interest or desire in informing themselves, they nevertheless subconsciously absorbed the payload and integrated it into their thinking.

Basically, you have to approach these people sideways. You can’t confront them with information. You can’t serve it to them on a silver platter. They don’t want it. You have to sneak it into their thinking without them even knowing. That is where we have fallen behind the Left.

    J. W. in reply to Same Same. | March 28, 2013 at 11:19 pm

    “You can’t confront them with information. You can’t serve it to them on a silver platter. They don’t want it. You have to sneak it into their thinking without them even knowing. That is where we have fallen behind the Left.”

    I agree. Many conservatives tend not to mention politics, directly or indirectly, in everyday conversation. Leftists do. So people who come into contact with both conservatives and leftists only hear leftist perspectives. More conservatives need to toss one-liners and bits of news into their conversations — not merely for the sake of passing on information, but for the sake of shaping the way people think.

I’ll take the Red Snapper…..VERRRRRY TASTY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KezvwARhBIc

And the country? Would have been better off with the goat.

Midwest Rhino | March 28, 2013 at 10:50 pm

The switching strategy assumes you always get a chance to switch. What if the only time you get the chance to switch is if you picked the car? They don’t compute … “oh, you picked the goat, you lose, no second choice”.

But though counter-intuitive, IF two of the remaining three are always eliminated, you randomly eliminate the car choice 1/3rd of the time, whereas Monty SELECTIVELY chooses the car (eliminating the goat) 2/3rds of the time.

That is like Egypt, keep voting till you pick theocracy, or caliphate.

    You’re right about Monty. He’d be more likely to give you a second pick if you picked the car first. If he always shows you a goat, then switching gives you a 2/3 change of winning. Always staying with the first pick is a 1/3 chance of winning. Another way of looking at it is, do you want door number 1 or both doors number 2 and 3?

The probability that the host will open a door with the goat, thereby completely eliminating one of the two wrong choices on the second round isn’t 33% but 100%. The “solution” only works if the host randomly opened a door and it was a goat.

By the way, I have eleven fingers, count ’em: ten, nine, eight, seven, six — and five more is eleven…

    Midwest Rhino in reply to janitor. | March 29, 2013 at 11:16 am

    completely eliminating one of the two wrong choices on the second round isn’t 33% but 100%. “

    67% of time he eliminates a goat a leaves a car
    33% of time he eliminates a goat and leaves a goat

    IF in that 67% case, half the time Monty doesn’t even offer a second chance, but lets you keep your goat, then there is no advantage to switching, it is 50/50.

    IF in the 67% he never offered a second choice, the only way to win is to NOT SWITCH. But then he could never entice people to switch. Only if you know Monty ALWAYS offers a second choice is ALWAYS switching so clear cut.

    The problem is stated that Monty “WILL OPEN” a second door, though I’m not sure Monty was actually constrained by such a “law”. I think people intuitively think Monty (is a greedy rich white male and so) will deceive, rather than just assuming he MUST OPEN a second door. 😉

LukeHandCool | March 29, 2013 at 1:51 am

Unbeknownst to many, on February 8, 1967, Joe Biden was chosen from the crowd on “Let’s Make a Deal,” and became the first contestant ever to be edited out after yelling, “Let’s Make a Big F***ing Deal, Monty!!”

With Obama, America chose door number 4.

This problem (in some variant) has stumped some very smart people — even me! I finally got it when I thought in terms of repeated choices rather than a one-time choice, because probability involves a pattern over many instances. But it still seems weird.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | March 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm

Monty Hall himself explains that the problem presented above, which is world famous and known as the “Monty Hall problem”, was never the situation the contestants ever faced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1BSkquWkDo

1. The key point in the problem statement is that the host always opens a door to a goat.

When you pick a door, you know that the chance is 2/3 that the car is behind one of the other two doors. That probability doesn’t change when the host reveals a goat.

2. I confess to having thought about this at length. (If the link hadn’t mentioned Paul Erdős, maybe I wouldn’t admit that!) Our host titles his post The answer to a question I never asked.

Maybe this kind of question should be asked because of its potential relevance to politics. The controversy about the solution suggests that, once they have taken a position, people can be resistant to new information. (In fact, as it were, some people will switch to the open door with the goat!)

3. I hope Kathleen is doing well. I miss her constructive, forward-looking posts.

Compared to what was behind Door No. 2, I’d prefer a goat!