334
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
334 points (97.4% liked)
World News
31446 readers
1000 users here now
News from around the world!
Rules:
-
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
-
No NSFW content
-
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
That's not how this kind of thing works, and it depends on where it starts. If it's 1% of children attempting suicide, which would be a huge amount, a 10% increase is 1.1%, and then for the next year a 10% increase makes it 1.21%, and then 1.33%. This is why when something increases your risk of something by say, 50%, it might mean absolutely nothing if the initial odds are 1 in a billion. 1.5 in a billion isn't really any more likely.
My neighbour was freaking out when she saw in the local newspaper that burglaries in our town had increased by 100%
I pointed out that we had 2 burglaries this year, compared to the 1 last year...
The increase itself doesn't matter where it starts, 10% each year over 13 years will always be an increase of ~245%.
It also matters a lot to look at the relative change no matter the absolute amount, since it indicates a trend. Even if the chance for something terrible is 1 in a billion, a steady 10% increase every year should worry everyone, since there is a clear trend (and compounding increases get big faster than you'd expect).