On Facebook, back when the jackpot was only nine hundred million dollars.
I am not linking to the thread because what I found interesting did not depend on the names of the people participating in the thread. Rather, it was with the thoughts shared within the thread. Besides, I have not asked permission to share the names, so I am erring on the side of respect for privacy. The wording has been lightly edited so that a search won’t be likely to immediately pull the source.
More below!
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It all started off with:
Given all I know about statistics and mathematics, I could never buy a lottery ticket. And, yet ...
In other diaries I’ve written about my perception that the signal to noise ratio online is almost never favorable, relatively little ‘signal,’ compared to all the ‘noise.’ Obviously on Daily Kos the percentages are far more favorable, but I did not expect to read much of interest in a celebrity’s FB thread. And, yet …
First, I found this comment response:
My objective in buying a lottery ticket isn’t to win a gazillion bucks. I buy a lottery ticket in order to daydream about winning for a couple of days, even though I know it won't happen. ‘Losing’ does not disappoint me because I expect to lose, I know I will lose. The two days of dreaming are pretty nice, however.
Then, yet another commenter said:
The same basic argument about math and statistics could explain our never existing, … and, yet.. ::wink::
We all exist, so it does not seem so unlikely that we would, but in many respects it is in fact miraculous that we do! That already represents a huge ‘lottery’ victory!
Finally, one said this, which I thought quite perceptive:
I did not get a ticket. I consider the odds of finding the winning ticket somewhere on the ground tomorrow, are about as good as buying one.
Now, of course, we know the prize amount is going up fairly dramatically! I realize that Steven will probably win it, but I admit to fantasizing a bit! How many candidates could I help with resources like those? Could one single liberal person with means help convince the society to get rid of Citizens United? Could a marketing genius be found and funded to disarm and undermine the 900+ million dollars of pissing in the soup ads the Koch Brothers are in the process of financing?
On to tonight’s comments! Collated and formatted by brillig!
TOP COMMENTS
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From ColoTim:
I thought G2geek had a very good idea for a future DKos upgrade. I'm not sure how exactly this predictions thing would work - maybe there's a way to set up the polls where the votes are tracked (I assume they're anonymous at this point) and then someone could track their poll history. Perhaps someone could query a particular user's poll history - I saw an argument between Bonddad and another longtimer on economic issues and they've frequently disagreed. This could be a means of settling, or perhaps creating a form of "trusted commenter" category. Anyway, I thought the comment might be of interest for DK6 or DK7.
From BeninSC:
I am nominating this comment by evcoren, in evcoren's astonishingly fine diary on Crowdsourcing the 50 State Strategy, links to yet other fine election resources and research, expanding the value of the diary itself! Do please read the diary!
This comment by OceanDiver should be read by EVERY book lover!
And one highlighted comment!
'Highlighted' by LamontCranston, this comment by Phoenix Woman pays tribute to David Bowie. (RIP)
(Ed. note: we are trying to 'transition' to calling comments 'flagged' by another member highlights, rather than 'flags,' as flag is now the new term for what used to be called hide-rates.)
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, January 10th 2016, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday, January 10th 2016. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment. Thank you jotter!