[Official] The Vinny G. Thread

[Jackalope]

No trolling, let's be real.

There was serious discussion going on. Nobody was even talking to you and jumped in and tried to troll the discussion.

And now you're talking to me about character?

You're like those anti-homosexuality Republicans who get caught diddling teenage boys. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

I know that was harsh, but you gotta admit it was true. And your post in that thread vouches for it.

Yes, by all means, let's be real.

First of all, this is a public forum. Allow the meaning of that adjective to sink in for a moment, and then consider what it means.

Secondly, serious discussion? Such as this gem that I was responding to?

How the fuck can it be improbable and certain at the same time you fuckwit?

Pay particular attention to the bolded part, if you will.

Fuckwit? That's serious discussion?

Before you object and claim that the person you were responding to was indeed being fuckwitted, allow me to expand upon what he was saying.

It's the actual occurrence of the event that changes the probability from a possibility to a certainty.

While Ben may have been a little imprecise in his wording, the odds of an event occurring are predictive in nature. Once an improbable event has occurred, arguing against it on the basis of improbability is folly. It happened.

Let me illustrate. The odds of being dealt any specific 5 cards in order in 5 card draw poker is on the order of one in trillions.

(1/52) * (1/51) * (1/50) * (1/49) * (1/48) * (1/47) = 6.3 x 10 ^ -11

That expression of odds is useful to predict whether a particular sequence of 5 specific cards will be dealt in the future. But let's say that I am deal the 2 of spades, the king of clubs, the ace of diamonds, the 7 of hearts and the 5 of spades in sequence. Aside from the observation that I should not play this hand, we can deduce that despite the astronomical odds against being dealt these particular cards (or ANY particular) in sequence, it happened.

The odds that it happened, since we know that it did, is unity. Thus, the event is both extremely improbable (from a predictive viewpoint) and certain (looking backwards). It matters not whether the odds are many orders of magnitude more improbable. Once it happens, it happened, and the predictive power of odds are irrelevant, except to predict future events. In this case, it would only be remarkable if it were predicted to occur and a sufficiently insignificant number of trials were conducted. Given the vastness of spacetime, it is a certainty that individually improbably events are happening with regularity.

Considering all of that, your statement that Ben is a "fuckwit" is unwarranted, and given my status as a moderator here, you're fucking-A right I'm going to call you on it.

So please, take your mock indignation and bluster and pound it up your ass.