You ever see a dog that’s got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it’s never going to make the connection.
Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.
Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?
Probability. If something has a 50% chance of occuring, that does not mean it will happen every second time, and our brain has a very hard time rationalizing that. For example, we assume its near impossible to flip heads on a coin three times in a row when really, the probability is 12.5% - not that low. Another example would be something with a 95% chance of success - we naturally round up and assume thats basically garenteed success, but theres still a very decent chance of failure, esspecially on repeat attempts. Our brains are just not wired to handle randomness well, which is part of why gambling is so addicting and why games like X-Com have to rig the odds in the players favour to avoid pissing them off.
And that past random events have no influence on future ones.
If a coin landed on one side ten times in a row, it’s still a 50% chance on the next throw. Something a lot of people have trouble with.
No, but you see, the chance you get the same side twice is… (HH, HT, TH, TT) 50%, shit
When we add another toss, you get only two possibilities of always same side, and 6 that are not.
So which is it? The coin itself may always have 50/50, but the universe which tosses in a series doesn’t?
This is my answer as well.
We have developed intuition around things like naive physics - you can catch a thrown frisbee without doing calculus in your head - but it’s really, really hard to think through statistical questions in an intuitive way.
It’s one reason I’m extremely skeptical about the utility of informed consent in medicine. A physician can tell a patient’s family that if they don’t do the procedure then the patient will definitely die, but if they do it there’s a 20% chance of complication A and a 5% chance of complication B. The right thing to do is plan on the complications happening and having a realistic idea of what that will entail. But people, especially under stress, really aren’t able to deal with that kind of thing as easily as they can deal with catching a ball thrown to them.
RPG games like Fortnite use an algorithm which tricks people into believing their skills are improving.
When you hit a pixel, it doesn’t automatically score a hit like Space Invaders, it runs an algorithm based on the time you have been playing the game to determine the amount of damage you cause. The more you play, the more “accurate” you become.
This kind of thing definitly exist, usually part of adaptative difficulty where for exemple you get an invisible buff after dying so you feel like you are improving.
But I fail to see that in fortnite since it’s a multiplayer game, only your skill and luck influence the outcome, not playtime. Fortnite isn’t an RPG either (As far as I know), so I guess you meant an other game ?
It’s not always for the benefit of the players. Gameloft, the makers of the Asphalt mobile racing series, was caught making the AI harder during special timed events that allowed you to win extra/special stuff by beating said AI. This was obviously for the express purpose of manipulating people into playing more and even though I once loved playing Asphalt 8 & 9, I no longer touch any of their games because of how shitty and disingenuous that is.
I never heard of that since I stopped playing asphalt but that seems like something Gameloft would do. Gameloft really fell off, they used to make good games…
But yeah, it can also be used badly, like making the game really easy after a purchase and then slowly go back to difficult. I don’t think I’ve heard of something like that yet, but it probably exist.