Probablism

created Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 10:14:46pm

Estimation is the key to success in practically any endeavour. While
this statement may seem trite or simplistic, it is, in fact, quite
meaningful. For instance, when one decides to perform even the most
mundane task, say, buying a new CD of one's favorite artist, one takes
into account many different factors: Which CD store is most likely to
have ordered copies; which CD store is least likely to have sold out
among those that ordered; Which CD store is the easiest to get to,
taking into account temporal fluctuations in both pedestrian and
vehicular traffic patterns. Let's say that the person working the CD
counter is attractive, and you try to pick them up: Is this person
attracted to your gender? Is this person someone that can be picked up
while at work? Is this person likely to have sex early enough in the
relationship to meet your dangerously hedonistic tendencies? All of
these questions are answered, without conscious thought, in a matter
of nanoseconds in your head. We compute the odds, we roll the dice,
and we often fool ourselves into believing that the odds fucked us
when things don't go our way. 

But it goes beyond this. By applying probablism CONSCIOUSLY, we can
manage to understand our more basic tendencies as nothing more than
thousands of these computations taking place concurrently. The best
metaphor currently occurring to me is that of the computer data
compilation screensaver that was (ostensibly) using your computer's
processing power to analyze small, discrete bits of a massive amount
of information, the results of which analysis would then be uploaded
to the main server and integrated with the work of the thousands of
other processors. Those of us blessed with good "common sense" are
most likely endowed with a faster set of processors than those of us
cursed with a single 286sx. 

In summation:
1) Correct estimation is the key to social, economic, and presumably
most other kinds of efficiency.
2) Humanity seeks efficiency, and values such efficiency as is created
by good estimating abilities, which we call common sense.
3) This common sense is actually nothing more than the constantly
evolving results of the vast, subconscious calculation of an infinite
number of probabilities and stimuli.
4) Good common sense comes from correct estimation.

The logical conclusion, you ask? Only gamble with people who have less
common sense than you, Burn your own CDs at home, and NO, they're not
gonna have sex with you.

I welcome differing opinions.

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