A terroristic problem

[MMMMMM]

I think the question has an objective answer, given only the assumptions or premises as posed in the question (one of the premises is to assume that the goal is to save lives).

Of course, the assumptions given are quite limited, and the real world scenario is more complicated than that.

[SumZero]

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Could you please point out the point the OP illustrates with the question?

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That mathematical principles have some value and should not be completely ignored in such scenarios.

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Yeah, but the setup for the math in the initial question is flawed. I'd give the benefit of the doubt here based on what I know about the London shooting to the police.

The reason the math is flawed is it is really a conditional probability question that states GIVEN there is a guy not responding to police acting some what suspiciously (for whatever definition of some what suspiciously you have) THEN what is the probability he is a terrorist that is about to explode a bomb?

If the conditional part happens once a century then clearly you don't need to be so sure. If it happens 1000 times a day then you need to be very sure before you shoot to kill. The guy in question could clearly not speak english, be deaf, be listening to earbuds, be lost in his own world not paying attention, etc. So I don't think the GIVEN part is that unlikely (and the poll question doesn't give this necessary piece of information), and as a result ~20% is too low [imagine it "the circumstance" happens 1000 times with innocent people for each 5 times it happens with guilty people and that you have a 20% rate of correctly identifying people. Then the probability that this is really a terrorist given you are 20% sure it is a terrorist is only 1/201 or less than half a percent].

[[censored]]

1 bomb ~= 5 lives

Shooting = 1 life

1/5 ~= 20%

[andyfox]

That's the way I voted, as the problem was designed to produce that answer, but there is a problem with the poll. And that is the problem of treating social problems as math problems. This is what I believe AC Player was getting at. Taking a strictly mathematical approach leads to destroying the village in order to save it.

[ACPlayer]

The general problem to using mathematics to solve societal problems usually comes down to the assumptions you use. The argument then becomes the assumptions to choose. That is really the advantage of formulating questions mathematically or rigorously (properly done it forces you to look at the assumptions). But once the assumptions are documented, we have to critically analyze not the solution to the problem posed (which to me is irrelevant) but the assumptions that were made in posing the problem.

Properly done this thread should be about the objectives of the police action in foiling suspected bomb wielding suspects, and in particular whether the minimize function on the lives lost is appropriate.

[Cyrus]

I hate to tell you this but your simplistic approach to the issue, as well as the original poster's grasp of it, indicate a profound misunderstaning of a key gamblinc concept, namely the Risk of Ruin.

If you cannot realize that once your are ruined (dead), you cannot come back and play another day (live again), then you have understood nothing about RoR.



Your life cannot be divided into percentages. Getting killed is irreversible. This cannot be "repeated a hundred times".

[Non_Comformist]

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I hate to tell you this but your simplistic approach to the issue, as well as the original poster's grasp of it, indicate a profound misunderstaning of a key gamblinc concept, namely the Risk of Ruin.

If you cannot realize that once your are ruined (dead), you cannot come back and play another day (live again), then you have understood nothing about RoR.



Your life cannot be divided into percentages. Getting killed is irreversible. This cannot be "repeated a hundred times".

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ya this isn't my simplistic approach. I was just solving the problem that was presented.

[ACPlayer]

Perhaps it is more appropriate to question the question then to answer it.

The question as posed has many answers, most likely none of them are correct and all of them are correct. THAT point was obvious when I first read it.

[gaming_mouse]

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8 bombs in two weeks, 4 lethal and 4 not, 50 people killed. A guy you think has a bomb is headed for a crowded subway and won't stop for police. Assume your goal is to save the most lives.

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Bruce,

Are we to assume that a bomb will, on average, kill 50/8 people? Because that cannot be inferred from the statistics given.

I cannot tell wheather you were trying to post a math/logic puzzle or make the point that it is misguided to apply the simple, clean-cut methods of puzzle solving to real life problems.

gm

[ptmusic]

If the purpose of this is to make a life or death decision based on an "easy calculation" (how absurd is that) to save the most lives, one needs to consider the INFINITE increase from 0 deaths to 1 death (you shoot and kill him). The increase from 1 death to 5 or more is not NEARLY as big an increase.

Therefore, you better be pretty damn certain that you will be saving lives before you make that infinite increase from 0 to 1.

-ptmusic