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Comment by danlitt

4 days ago

No, you are right, this hyper-numericalism is just astrology for nerds.

In military they estimate distances this way if they don't have proper tools. Each says a min max range and then where there's most overlap, that will be taken. It's a reasonable way to make quick intuition based decisions when no other way is available.

  • If you actually try to flesh out the reasoning behind the distance estimation strategy it will turn out 100x more convincing than the analogous argument for bayesian probability estimates. (and for any bayesians reading this, please don't multiply the probability by 100)