
Statistics, Fast and Slow - khc
http://timharford.com/2018/05/statistics-fast-and-slow/
======
aphx
We run into similar challenges of scale and experience in humanitarian/aid
work. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers of suffering people when the
primary dimension of representing them is something like "food consumption."
Stats are vital for the logistics of meeting acute needs, but they erase
(abstract out) the rich dynamics of human life.

You might think photos would help, but the endless stream of images of
"starving people" ends up being cumulative, compounding the matter.

Projects that systematically dig into the lived experience of beneficiaries
and treat them as complex social beings start to bridge that gap. They not
only dignify the people involved (providers and beneficiaries both), but also
often discover systemic issues that "the numbers" would never reveal.

I wonder what conversations the author had with people who lived there
(genuine question, not a criticism).

~~~
gadders
I Was on Facebook the other day in a group about gym-going and a black lady
posted a question about working out. It was evident that English wasn't her
first language, so I clicked through to her profile out of interest and had a
look at some of her posts.

One of them I remember was where she had laid out some new purchases or
something on her bed. What struck me, though, was that the walls of her room
were corrugated iron. I wish I could have sent her £50 or something right
then, without sounding like a patronising twat. Not a life changing sum, but
maybe it would have helped her in some way.

~~~
shalmanese
This TED talk [1] about seeing how the rest of the world lives was very
insightful for me. Anna Rosling Rönnlund (Hans Rosling's daughter in law) went
to 264 homes of varying income levels and took photos of beds, stoves, toys
and other standardized goods. When sorting by income level, you can spot
globalized trends by income regardless of nationality.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4L130DkdOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4L130DkdOw)

~~~
aphx
Oh yeah, Dollar Street (what that talk is based on) is a great project!

"In the news people in other cultures seem stranger than they are. We visited
264 families in 50 countries and collected 30,000 photos. We sorted the homes
by income, from left to right."

[https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-
street/matrix](https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/matrix)

------
lordnacho
What's interesting is when there's a big discrepancy between what the numbers
say, and what the place feels like. Stats, like impressions, are not all made
the same way.

When I was in Switzerland I always thought there was something sluggish about
the economy, the pace that things went at, the lunch breaks, but the stats say
it's one of the most prosperous places in the world.

With the Scandies I wonder how on earth the happiest country in the world
could possibly be Denmark. Maybe they hide their feelings, but I found a lot
of other places have people who seem happier.

Getting those discrepancies is vital, btw. You need the impressions to make
you curious about the stats, and vice versa.

~~~
kharak
I'm curious, what exactly do you mean with sluggish in Switzerland (Zurich?)
in comparison to which country? What I've experienced there is a
conscientious, highly skilled workforce. Just small in numbers.

~~~
coldtea
He compares it to the busywork, work-till-11 including weekends, BS culture
most of us live in -- e.g. what many American managers cherish and measure
things by.

~~~
milesvp
I wish more people would realize that if you're busy all the time, you're
almost by definition not working on the most important thing you could be. If
you're busy it can be hard to not focus on the task at hand, which means often
the big picture is lost. If you're busy, it can be really hard to explore
alternatives, especially since most will be a waste of time. And when you're
busy, it can be really hard to take the time to play (though this is possibly
a flip side to exploring), which can be uniquely valuable.

Couple this with the engineering concept that as a system approaches 100%
utilization, catastrophic failure becomes increasingly more likely, and people
who are always busy may never be able to perform at their highest level. Once
you fall behind, which is increasingly likely when trying to maximize short
term output, it can be really hard to justify anything else. And if, god
forbid, you start losing sleep, then you're going to be even more stupid,
which will make any kind of catching up impossible.

~~~
coldtea
> _Couple this with the engineering concept that as a system approaches 100%
> utilization, catastrophic failure becomes increasingly more likely_

Nobody cares for that, since there's nothing really critical behind most job
positions -- just cogs in a bigger wheel.

In areas where this matters (e.g. people die), engineers are treated
differently (e.g. at NASA).

------
clarkmoody
Really excellent video on how headline statistics, such as "median household
income" are often misleading and hide the real story:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXI_ADnp22c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXI_ADnp22c)

Edit: these stats are often used to push a political agenda, citing "lack of
growth for the middle class," but when you dig into the stats, the story is
often the opposite of that claimed by the politician, etc.

~~~
allenz
Your video argues that it's complicated to measure the growth of the middle
class. But the best number shown is 23% growth over 31 years, 1979-2010. I
think that qualifies as lack of growth. For reference, the GDP grew 230% in
those years.

A followup video argues that lower household income is due to smaller
households, but fails to mention that individual income also trends down.[1]

Though your video appears neutral, it is presented by a libertarian and the
key 23% statistic comes from a conservative economist. The argument that we
shouldn't trust numbers is misleading when there is well-documented evidence
across a range of measures that growth is concentrating in the upper class.[2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#Over_time,_by_ethnicity_and_sex)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States)

~~~
icc97
> But the best number shown is 23% growth over 31 years, 1979-2010. I think
> that qualifies as lack of growth. For reference, the GDP grew 230% in those
> years.

The video states this too near the end - that 23% over 31 years can also be
seen as not much.

I think the main argument is that using the CPI-U or the PCE changes things
significantly (from -7% to +23%). There's so many variables in any economic
analysis that it's hard to trust any figure that someone shows you.

~~~
allenz
That looks like a big difference if you take the numbers out of context. But
consider how much the economy has changed since the 70s: there has been a
doubling of output through revolutions in technology, finance, energy,
medicine, everything. Equitable growth would be 100% growth over that period.

True, there is a margin of error between different methodologies. CPI shows
about half a percent more inflation per year than PCE. Similar arguments apply
to measurements of climate change. They miss the forest for the trees.

------
GauntletWizard
I want statistics on the outcomes for people who ignore statistics, people who
take statistics much less seriously than their gut, people who take gut much
less seriously than their statistics, and people who ignore their gut.

My gut feeling is that the outcomes for people who use their gut over
statistics are significantly better. And if you showed me statistics that they
aren't, I'd trust my gut on it.

~~~
speedplane
If your gut feeling was accurate, no one would be on vaccines and we'd all
have smallpox, we'd only invest in feel-good companies that have no chance at
profit, and communications systems (which entirely depend on statistics) just
wouldn't work.

What's your point?

~~~
nonbel
Actually it looks like smallpox only existed since about the time statistics
was invented:

 _" our data clearly show that the VARV lineages eradicated during the 20th
century had only been in existence for ∼200 years"_
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5196022/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5196022/)

 _" The German Statistik, first introduced by Gottfried Achenwall (1749),
originally designated the analysis of data about the state, signifying the
"science of state" (then called political arithmetic in English). It acquired
the meaning of the collection and classification of data generally in the
early 19th century."_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_statistics)

This correlation suggests that as soon as people stopped using their gut
feelings smallpox evolved to take advantage.

------
chiefalchemist
If you find this article interesting look into "The Influential Mind" by Tali
Sharot. It was on FT's shortlist for Best of 2017.

The parallel is how the brain is wired, and how that effects perception /
belief.

[https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627792653](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627792653)

------
rakamotog
I've had a chance to see stats in an ad sales pitch by a media conglomerate.
Most of the stats I see are the chunks of data which are sliced to sound
impressive (uplevel correlation to imply causation) Ex:- Within the region
filter X, among the millennials, the sales of SUV's increased by 10% is worded
as Youth buys more SUV's if you buy our ad slots with a footnote for filters

Point being, governments create misleading stats, companies create misleading
stats, makes me agree even more with the author! PS:- Misleading !=(also, =!)
incorrect

------
dbxz
To be a statistician is to ignore experience. I once interviewed someone who
was a statistics major. When I asked him a performance optimization question,
the first thing he told me is that he'd write a program to compute the
standard deviation of running time. He could've solved it in two minutes just
by running the thing. No hire.

~~~
ccccc0
I think it's a pretty good idea actually, because with standard deviations
(and means, of course) you can run statistical tests to make sure your
improvements are statistically significant and not due to chance. I hope the
candidate had a chance to explain themselves before he got no-hired.

~~~
maxander
The candidate is probably now happily working under a manager who doesn’t
complain “why are you using your skills? Just [do the simplest thing that
occurs to me], you idiot.”

~~~
eftychis
A lot of managers out there like that unfortunately.

