Calling Bullshit 2.4: Fermi Estimation

[@craigbenz4835]

Last weekend I went round and round about this with a cousin while discussing the value of the equipment left in Afghanistan during the pull out. Especially after considering the cost of removing the equipment.

[@Ag8MrE]

Lawrence Krauss does a really good lecture on this at the New College of the Humanities. Easy to find on youtube.

[@coldzeragod4333]

Came here after watching Dr Stone

[@kagory1002]

Right

[@Notmainchannel1]

Same

[@freddymeng]

When did he use this?

[@ankitnmnaik229]

Can u mention the episode and season where he use Fermi estimation ..

[@quirtt]

​@@ankitnmnaik229 1st season

[@schottilie]

@Jevin: 1) why didn't you make the students use "fermi estimation" to answer the question about the yearly amount? just divide all the three suggestions by 50 and you get the weekly amount, and then it's obvious that 20$ must be the correct answer. (administrative costs would be too high for giving out amounts of 2 $, and for 200 $ you could eat steak.) you missed a teaching opportunity there... and 2) good "fermi estimation" keeps things simple! there is no need to know the percentage of americans getting food support (1%) nor that average amount per person (of 1000 $ per year); just divide 300 mio americans (round up to 350 mio) by 70 mio $ and get 5 americans per dollar or 20 cents "wasted" per american. that's small enough to know how small these 70 mio $ acutally are! keep "fermi estimation" as simple as possible! that's the whole point!

[@sgrant39]

Average SNAP is actually 2,700 per person 2022.

[@saniyosh8489]

Dr stone...? Ya Me too...though I searched it again....

[@sgrant39]

I wish it was only 70,000,000.

[@NonyaDamnbusiness]

So what you're implying here is that it's OK to waste $70 million taxpayer dollars because the food stamp program is so vast, unwieldy to change, and expensive that to cancel or reform it would be bad? I call bullshit on your obvious confirmation bias in regards to the overall data. Please kindly deposit 0.2% of your monthly paychecks into my own bank account if you think that's an insignificant amount of "loss".

[@theblackherald]

It's useful to bear context in mind. The argument you're making seems to be: "Any program that wastes at least 70 million dollars should be cancelled." I'm assuming this is your argument because you mentioned your discomfort with the amount and mentioned your displeasure at the proportionality argument, implying that the relative size of the waste doesn't matter as much as the gross amount of waste. Would you be willing to make the same argument for the military budget? Or Medicare? Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion leaves us with very few acceptable government programs. Was that your intention? If you forgive me for saying so, it seems that this is more of an argument against government programs in general, and the existence if the food stamp program in particular, than an argument against waste.