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Randomness is Random - Numberphile

30 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
4 HN users recommended this explainer4 months2019–2022 score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Recommended as an accessible demonstration that people are bad at producing or judging random sequences.

Numberphile with Simon Pampena on how humans misunderstand randomness, including coin-flip sequences, run lengths and the gambler's fallacy.

“Here's a great video demonstrating how people tend to misunderstand randomness” (HN, 2019)

4 recommendations · Explainers

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@codesushi42 Jun 2019 Recommends
on HN thread Interview on ”Bayesian Statistics the Fun Way”
I would argue that the problem with frequentist statistics is that it aligns with humans' flawed intuition of how randomness works. People are inherently obsessed with finding patterns to support their hypotheses. The problem is that what we perceive as random and extremely unlikely events are in fact much more probable than what we estimate from using Gaussian methods. And the frequentist approach helps to create this distortion by ignoring black swans. Here's a great video demonstrating how people tend to misunderstand randomness: [this video]
Shows how people misunderstand randomness
@wruza Sep 2019 Recommends
on HN thread A New Algorithm for Controlled Randomness
Oh, I remember good old fallout 1-2 when you have 42% hit chance but still miss 7 times in a row. There is also a good Numberphile video on what we think random really is (it is not) [this video]
What humans think random really is

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