Becoming a statistic
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsWe’re all a statistic somewhere: a number, one of many that someone, somewhere, keeps track of. Maybe you’re one of X thousand digital audio subscribers, or perhaps you’re among the few that only purchase vinyl, but somewhere you’re showing up as a statistic.
Most of us wish to belong to a group, family, or collection of likeminded people. There’s strength in numbers and our decisions to move in one direction or another are validated by the others.
What’s interesting to me is the conflict between how I feel inside vs. my needs to be part of a group. Inside, I am an individual—a separate entity unto myself. No one knows what’s inside my head nor how I am thinking. I believe I am unique in the universe. Yet, on more than a few levels, I qualify as a measurable statistic. A predictable entity. Regardless of the clutter of seemingly unique motivations in my head, someone, somewhere can pretty accurately guess what my next moves are going to be.
Even if I decide I don’t want to identify as part of a group I remain a predictable statistic: I am part of a group that doesn’t want to be part of a group.
I know. All this keeping track of people seems kind of creepy, right?
If belonging to a family or group of likeminded people—our tribe—is what makes us stronger and more resourceful than what we alone can achieve, then what’s creepy about keeping track of the members? It’s how we know there is more than just one in the tribe.
I for one am fine with being counted amongst my fellow audiophiles and music lovers, even if it means someone else can predict what the future might look like.
Groucho Marx….you know where I’m going with this…
“I would never be part of a club that would have someone like me as a member” *BOOM*!!
Paul, have you seen the documentary “The Creepy Line”?
FR-LMAO!
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination”
― Andrew Lang
Or, as Yogi Berra said, when asked about his favorite restaurant, “no one goes there anymore, it got too crowded.”
It’s in the Bible. Jews don’t count people. When the Israelites were told to count themselves after leaving Egypt they all gave half a shekel and the money was counted. “They” were all males over 20, so very audiophile (males over 60 would have been better). Moreover, Jewish philosophy tells us that every individual is as important as all mankind. At least 10 males over age 13 are required for a prayer service, who are counted by reciting a 10-word verse.
The message from above? Manufacturers and retailers should treat every customer as their one and only customer. From the customer perspective, there is often safety in numbers (if everyone uses shekels, don’t use kopeks), and if you go for one-off bespoke you’re probably sunk.
p.s. The Israelites also invented tribalism, which persists in Christian, Islamic and many other religions and cultures. Who used valves and who solid state is a matter of great debate.
Two quotes spring to mind.
“I am not a number, I am a free man.”
“We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”
Richtea,
So I guess your number never gets called…. 🙂
Speaking of device, any forward progress in the decision of getting new digital equipment? Or are you still a prisoner of your current device? 🙂
That’s a big question Mike. The short answer is yes, I’m still a prisoner. I’ve been reading a lot and talking to audio friends. I know the only opinion that really matters is mine but just trying to get a vibe. My fear is that after investment the improvement won’t be as great as I hope. There’s an awful lot of hype out there, how else would they sell stuff. Result indecision, but no loss of finance! I recently changed my speakers, where the most difference is made. Yes, they’re better, no going back, but again possibly not by as much as I thought. It’s difficult to quantify these improvements. It becomes very incremental and I wonder if it’s worth it. Then again, what price musical pleasure. The decision to change changes itself from day to day, but no rush and most importantly, I’m enjoying the journey.
The journey and resulting education is as equally important as the enjoyment in the end.
Good luck on the quest, and at some point try (audition) a few to get a feel. I initially fretted over the first step….. but am very glad I finally took it. It’s opened up many options ….
Rich (3:47am),
“welcome to the Hotel California…
You can checkout any time you like; but you can never leave”
F R. I just love that line even though I’m not entirely sure what it means.
Richtea,
In the context of the lyric:
Essentially it’s saying that you can die there (checkout; slang for ‘die’) at the ‘Hotel’ of drugs & vices, but you can’t just walk away…A warning about addiction.
Does this post relate to the recent popping up of PS Audio targeted banner adds on my Google home page?
😉
Aero,
What?!
Really?
That hasn’t hit me yet…maybe we’re immune in Australia…so far.
”Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable”
Is it statistically probable that I’m going to spring for a Power Plant this year? Only google analytics and I know…. 🙂
There’s a joke about statistics, the punchline being “once you’ve got them down you can do what you want with them”
Rich,
Yes I vaguely remember that one.
I think that it had some sort of female comparison, which would be politically incorrect these days.
F R. That’s the one!
I think the expression you’re looking for is “there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics.”
When it comes to government, it seems we are all just entries on a spreadsheet – or multiple spreadsheets, the distribution of which is statistically predictable.
The Feds and States consider everyone to be alike, the same, cut from the same cloth, from the same mold…but we are expected to come up with individualized plans of care. The truth is, we are all different. We may have things in common, and large groups may have behaviors or whatever as a whole that are predictable, but statistical models are less valid the smaller the group. When the group is one (N=1), statistics don’t apply. Bureaucrats, statistically speaking, are nuts.
I read a story once that a guy at the Penn State homecoming bonfire heard a deep sigh behind him. He asked the guy if anything was wrong, and the guy said, “You know you’ve been in school tool long when you look at Nittany Mountain and all you see is a probability curve.”
Yes, Life is a collection of probability curves, but probabilities are not certainties.
Most statistics are not (at all) accurate.
They are rounded up to give the impression they are precise. And that’s what the masses want, what people like to read.
Nobody likes statistics that are a bit “vague”, as if the one who wrote it down wasn’t sure.
Having said that, I have read some statistics that are very accurate :
– 3 out of 4 Americans make up 75% of the population
– death is 100% fatal to humans
I’m 100% certain you can’t argue with that.
“Baseball is about 90% mental and the other half physical”. – Yogi Berra
I think there is a human instinct to put everything in sorted arrangements, put them in a box, and put a label on it. In short to organize things. AI computers are doing that to me now. As I type they’re trying to put me in a box. What can they sell me I’m most likely to buy. How can they get me to vote for their candidate, join their religion. Am I a threat to the national security? Am I likely to go out and hurt somebody? The rebel in me defies being categorized. Whatever box with a label on it you put me in there will be a reason I don’t fit in that box. I march to the beat of my own drum. I trust nobody. I’ll listen to what you have to say if it isn’t obvious jibberish, think about it for awhile and probably conclude you’re wrong. Doesn’t matter if you’re a priest or a physicist. If there is a flaw in your argument I’ll find it and let you know in no uncertain terms. You can’t sell me anything. I’m the buyer. I work on the principle that the one who has the money controls the deal. “If you walk away from this deal I won’t offer it again.” I don’t walk away, I run away as fast as I can. You can’t get me to enlist in any cause. You can’t get me to subordinate my needs, my desires to something or someone else even for the greater good of mankind. If something is a threat my instinct is to destroy it. Put yourself on a pedestal and the higher it is the more I want to topple the pedestal and you with it. And in my old age I no longer mince words. Politeness if for young people who want to get something from someone. I don’t go around deliberately insulting people, they have to earn it. But when I do, there’s no holding me back. As an example there was this Rabbi on Linkedin who kept pestering me trying to get me to join his “flock.” I instinctively don’t listen to a man in a dress wearing a funny hat and carrying an old book written just after the wheel was invented and fire was discovered. Finally I told him that from my point of view he was a know nothing primitive and that nothing he had to say could possibly interest me. Finally he left me alone. I’ve never donated so much as one cent to a politician, political party, or a religion. I’m getting sick and tired of the billionaire President Trump texting me for donations. Ya ain’t gettin’ none. Not from me. Look at that photo for this posting. I’m the sixth finger on the sixth hand you don’t see.
Hello Soundmind,
Here’s a home run pitch that I thought you would enjoy….
“If your experiment needs a statistician, you need a better experiment.”
― Ernest Rutherford
I remember a lab report I did back in college. Can’t remember what it was about but the instructions were to plot the data points on a graph and draw the best straight line through them. They were all over the place. So I changed the scale of the axes by a few orders of magnitude, all of the data points converged to one dot, and I drew a straight line from zero through the dot. 🙂
I hate to tell you this but a lot of science is done with plotting data that doesn’t neatly fit a line or a curve of any known kind. Therefore in the sophomore year they teach you a course in statistics and probability with topics like “standard deviation.” It’s a fudge method when what you measure makes no sense and you have a theory up your sleeve or out of a book to prove. In short they teach you how to lie. I understand from Secretary Pompeo the CIA teaches its agents how to lie also. That’s one thing I’m not very good at. As a con man I’d have starved to death.
BTW, as part of the course they teach you how to calculate odds in all casino gambling games. Take my word for it, the longer you play the more certain the house is to win. If you get a lucky streak, take your money, quit and run like hell with it. Double down long enough and you’ll go broke. Now if you count cards in blackjack they’ll throw you out and you’ll be banned from casinos for life.
You say you “love” casino gambling? Get a computer program. You’ll always lose to that program eventually also but it won’t cost you anything except the software which is little or nothing. I must say they do make casinos attractive. I like to watch to see which machines take the customers’ money fastest. On Costa decades ago the machines were paying out on the first night. All the old ladies from Florida flocked to the machines. Then at lunch the next day the technicians were rigging the machines and from that point on you never stood a chance. Nobody else was around to see it and the technicians didn’t care.
Casinos rig things so that they pay back a certain percentage of the money, but they always make more than they pay out. Three percent of $15,000,000 per night beats 50% of $1,000,000 by a factor of 10. They purposely disorient people by having no windows, have asynchronous sounds and lights from the machines, give free drinks, and even pipe in oxygen, which for some reason makes people gamble more.
Hmmm…if only I could open a casino…but I can’t even walk through one without scrambling my brain. I go into a form of delirium. It makes me dizzy. And just not right. So I don’t go into casinos, except the hotels on occasion.
All… I wanted. Was the double espresso coffee. What are all you people talking about?
Make that with Stevia, please.
Resistance is futile. LOL.
“We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.” (VOY: “Collective”). Are we part of the collective like the Borg in Star Trek? Even in groups we all have our diverse opinions. Freedom of speech doesn’t end because we’re part of a group. Having something in common doesn’t mean we have everything in common.
Joseph,
Thumbs up!