frosty99c

I see vote counts. Is it possible that your instance blocks them for some reason?

I mean, it's pretty well documented how awful Christopher Columbus was. Even in the context of the time period: he was arrested in the new world and shipped back to Spain for a trial because he was so ruthless in his treatment of the native peoples. The myths about him being a 'great man' are all only like 100 years old.

Oh my God, I read that as "Kissinger" and thought for a terrible moment that he was still alive.

Also possible that there may have been multiple in the household if so many were printed and mailed out? Maybe they turned the real one in for the prize money and then kept a non-winning one in a scrap book? Memories over time are weird so they could've convinced themselves that they kept the real one

Thank you! I should've linked to it. The actual text does a much better job of answering OP than my attempt to summarize it.

Especially in the US, where both parties are globally "right" in both political and financial aspects, a lot of time claiming to be a centrist means that you like capitalism and bombing other countries but you support LGBT causes and are pro-choice. I think, online and especially on lemmy, that the vocal left-wing voices (correctly) see this still as aiding the right but being too cowardly to admit it.

This also ties back to the MLK quote about the 'white centrist' being the biggest obstacle to his movement, because they may say the right things and appear to be helpful but take no action for the movement. By staying centrist and trying to meet in the middle, would lend credibility to the voices on the other side.

Either him or Seinfeld? Feels like the stand-up bit at the beginning of one of the early episodes.

The original draft probably said "nearly a 300% increase" and then the editor didn't know the difference between percent increase and basic multiplication.

Right, isn't that the point of the question? What old time things did we do for one reason (cloven hooves) that turned out to be right for completely different reasons (health and safety)

In the original the possibilities for a prize behind the doors 1,2,3 are:

A) YNN B) NYN C) NNY

In (A) - A.1 you choose door 1 and then stay, you win A.2 you choose door 1 and switch, you lose A.3 you choose door 2 and stay, you lose A.4 You choose door 2 and switch, you win A.5 you choose door 3 and stay, you lose A.6 you choose door 3 and switch, you win

By staying, you lose in 2 of 3 cases (A.3 and A.5)

By switching you only lose in 1 case (A.2)

It works out for (B) and (C) the same way. You have a 2/3rds chance of winning if you switch and a 1/3rd chance of winning if you don't.

This isn't a trick or anything, the math is pretty clear and you can actually write out all the scenarios and count it up yourself. It's just a little counterintuitive because we aren't used to thinking in terms of conditional probabilities this way.

Another way to think about it is the probability of losing. If the contestant loses, it means that they picked correctly on their first choice and then swapped. This will happen 1/3rd of the games, because there is a 1 in 3 chance of picking correctly the first time. So, if you have a 1/3rd chance of losing by swapping, then it follows that you have a 2/3rds chance of winning by swapping (choosing incorrectly at the start and then switching to the correct door)

Do you know the third door is never correct? Because then the probability doesn't change.

Scenario 1: You chose 1/2 at first with a 50% chance of being correct, I introduce a 3rd door (but it isn't a legit possibility), so the actual choice for you is still 50/50 (between doors 1 and 2)

Scenario 2: If you think it's possible that 3 could be correct (but it actually never is) then, no, you wouldn't want to switch. By staying with your first choice has a 50% chance of winning, by switching it only has a 33% chance. But there's no way to know this ahead of time (because as soon as you know you shouldn't switch bc 3 is the wrong door, then you're back in scenario 1)

Scenario 3: For completeness, let's say the 3rd door can be correct sometimes. Then it doesn't matter if you switch or not. It's a 33% chance of winning either way. If there is a chance it can be correct, then your first choice doesn't matter at all and the second choice is the 'real' choice bc that's the only time you're able to choose from all real possibilities.

The only reason that the Monty Hall problem changes probability in the second choice is because you are provided more information before the switch (that the opened door is absolutely not the one with the prize)