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A comment on Potato paradox. Parent comment

Re:Potato paradox by drusepth on Monday August 13, 2018 @01:34PM (#17751901)
It's only the same amount of fuel savings if you burn the same amount of fuel, right? The amount of fuel saved between 10mpg -> 12mpg may be roughly equal to an improvement of 30mpg -> 60mpg, but being able to go e.g. 600 miles (one 10-gal tank) vs 300 miles could be the difference between buying one tank or two (or: 1000 or 2000 over your car's lifetime).

Wouldn't that mean 30mpg -> 60mpg is more likely to save fuel on average because people are need less fuel to get them where they're going?

Or did I just get bamboozled by the trick?

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Re:Potato paradox by amdavidson on Monday August 13, 2018 @01:50PM (#17752045)
Unfortunately you got bamboozled.

50000 miles / 12 miles per gallon = 4166 gallons

50000 miles / 10 miles per gallon = 5000 gallons (833 gallons saved)

50000 miles / 60 miles per gallon = 833 gallons

50000 miles / 30 miles per gallon = 1666 gallons (833 gallons saved)

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Re:Potato paradox by bacon_waffle on Monday August 13, 2018 @04:49PM (#17753526)
It's a simple illustrative paradox, but the world is complicated.

I'd go with choice 5 as well. Maybe it's a world where the same number of gallons is saved (per miles driven) as choice 1, but it's a world where the roads are safer.

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