Direct experiences are unfiltered. Statistics are often used to lie and deceive.
It's not a dig against math or statistics. It's a dig against the people using statistics. What do you do when, statistically, the majority of statistics you're given are lies, wrong, irrelevant, misleading, or out of context? You ground yourself in direct experience.
And direct experience is usually very very flawed in perception. Look into "eyewitness" testimony and how often people's perceptions are extremely flawed and easily manipulated.
Even simple events are difficult to evaluate. One podcaster I've listened to for a decade had an issue on a flight. He bumped into a passenger in front of him and words were exchanged. Eventually he was deplaned by the pilot. In his telling of the story, it was completely outrageous and unwarranted. But obviously to others involved, he was completely in the wrong, enough to be deplaned.
So no, "direct experiences" are definitely filtered.
For another example, my daughters feel unsafe walking alone at night in my city's downtown area. Whereas I, walking at the same time in the same area, don't feel any danger at all. Every human experience is mediated by our past history.
>Every human experience is mediated by our past history.
Also by others who may have an agenda.
What's more likely. That a person is afraid of walking alone in your city at night because of a personal experience (like being the victim of a crime) or what they heard from other people?
The context is right there in the link. Listen to the whole interview, you might learn something. It's pretty wild for a random HN user to label one of the top 10 most successful technology leaders of our time as "insane", lol.
I labeled the statement insane not the person. It's also a common slang to call an opinion insane without it being taken to a level of seriousness that you implied.
Given two sets of data: The statistics and your anecdotal evidence.
The probability of anecdotal evidence being correct must be lower than than the anecdotal evidence being incorrect when it conflicts with the statistics since the statistics come from anecdotal evidence.
Therefore, all other things being equal, if you are presented with data that conflicts with your anecdotal evidence the data has the higher probability of being correct.
> It's pretty wild for a random HN user to label one of the top 10 most successful technology leaders of our time as "insane"
It should probably happen more often.
Here, let me go. I think it is insane that Elon Musk took so much ketamine that he kept peeing his pants and then kept telling people about it. I think it is insane he's been promising that FSD is <2 years away for the past decade.
Jeff Bezos is a morally bankrupt oligarch; that does not, depending on who you ask, make him insane, but it does mean that I will interpret what he says through the lens of a sociopath who is used to hearing from sycophants.
Hero worship is pretty bad in tech circles. Just because Bezos has managed to win at the money game, doesn't mean he's a good person. He's pretty sociopathic. I know several people who worked with him very closely in the beginning years of Amazon and they tell stories...
What is the context or background for this statement? It's completely insane to think something like this