Indeed, in fact in most situations it's impossible to be both an ordinary individual and be in an ordinary group.

Hypothetically, let's imagine there were 10 normal-sized planets with 10 people each, and 1 big planet with 1 million. In this scenario everyone is either on a strange (big) planet, or they are on a normal planet but they are not typical individuals, because over 99% live on the big planet.

Analogy time:

- I am an ordinary human

- I live in an ordinary country

One of these is wrong, and it's the second one.

yeah OK that makes sense.

So what about:

- Humans are an ordinary species

- Humans live in an ordinary galaxy

Does that change our relative height?

I see what you're trying to do, but it doesn't work. Our arguments need to be like the Doomsday argument, presented here: https://what-if.xkcd.com/65/

If most species looked at themselves and said "my species is ordinary" the majority of them would be right; however, it doesn't give you any statistical reason to think that humans are ordinary.

that was fascinating, thanks :)

The counter-intuitiveness of it all is really intriguing. We really are evolved to think in small numbers.

According the reasoning here it's the second one that's wrong (or rather, unlikely).

btw fergussimpson your posts are showing up dead but then are getting undeaded after a certain period of time I guess. Your first post here was dead for a while and now it isn't. Your reply to this parent is dead as of writing this post. I guess it's because you have a new account - I wasn't aware we were auto-hellbanning people now, though. How annoying.

Hmm that's unfortunate. How do I become un-dead?!

I Am Not A Necromancer, but I believe the process involves some sort of blood sacrifice and, in some cultures, a certain amount of chanting. Dancing may also be involved, or at the very least the rattling of bone talismans.

Hth.

What's likely happening is someone's vouching for your comments. I did that for your other one.

You should rapidly become considered a normal user, but I'm told emailing HN is what you do if you continue to be auto marked dead.

How do you vouch for someone? I can't see an option - is it like flagging?

Click the time stamp of the comment and the vouch link should show.

You need a karma level of 30 for the flag / vouch links to appear. You need to have showdead turned on to see the comments that have been flagged.

Here are two comments from dang about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10638699

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10478886#up_10480270