From: Darin Sunley (dsunley@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 17 1998 - 23:00:30 MDT
---Hal Finney <hal@rain.org> wrote:
>
>
> Consider something like a growing fad, say the Tamagotchi toys. By
the
> time you see someone playing with one, chances are the fad is near the
> end of its lifetime. It may have grown quietly for years and you
never
> heard of it. Your chances of seeing someone with one are greater, the
> more people have them. By the time you see one the fad has neared its
> peak. In fact, Tamagotchis are passe now, I am told by my kids.
>
This is the fundamental problem with the DA. When WE look at a
Tamagotchi, odds are that we are fairly close to the end of the fad.
But if a Tamagotchi were to look at the population of tamagotchis
about it it would have no real way of assigning a probability as to
it's position within the Tamagotchi birth-order.
You are right in that "Your chances of seeing someone with [a
Tamagotchi] are greater, the more people have them [i.e. the more time
has passed].", but OUR odds of seeing other humans do NOT vary over
time. They are 1:1, assuming a population of more then 1.
Darin Sunley
dsunley@yahoo.com
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