- Joined
- Oct 21, 2020
Peetz suicide predictions are optimistic as all hell, though it's understandable as to why people ould come to the conclusion. Peetz is depressed, yes, and most men, when they kill themselves, do not give much notice to others. But just because that's a commonality across men who commit suicide, that doesn't mean Peetz's behaviour is as strong an indicator of his imminent suicide as most people might think.
There's a common flaw in how we form beliefs called the base rate fallacy. It's probably one of the most incidious ones out there that people fall into. The general idea is that people forget the base rate of something when they are forming a prediction on the likelihood of an outcome. So in this case, say 90% of men who commit suicide do it quietly without giving any substantial signals of suicidality beforehand. If we think about just that statistic, it seems like Peetz an heroing himself is a shoe in for being the next big feature on the forum. But it's important to remember the base rate. Too lazy to find the most up to date numbers, but in Canada in 2009 there were 17.9 suicides per 100,000 people, and around 5% of people older than 25 reported feeling depressed in the last 12 months (2012). With those numbers (these are very vague figures, not precise obviously) the percentage chance that any depressed male in Canada over the age of 25 will kill themselves that year is 0.358%.
Obviously this isn't precise, Peetz is probably a bit more depressed (though not much more) than the average person with depression in Canada. There are so many factors at play to squibble over, but that is the base rate that should not be forgotten.
I would be hesistant to seriously put the chance of Peetz's suicide any higher than say 1-2%. 5% would be an upper limit with very little confidence.
Sorry. I know it'd be really funny to see Chinny not give a shit about Peetz's death and try to milk it for all the money she can, but that probably won't happen.
Speaking of percentages, if Peetz flies off to that pony pasture across the rainbow bridge, will he be counted among the 41%?