[R] A general question about using Bayes' Theorem for calculating the probability of The End of Human Technological Civilisation

[David Winsemius]

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-- 

David.

On 3/19/19 10:42 AM, Philip Rhoades wrote:
> People,
>
> I have only a general statistics understanding and have never actually 
> used Bayes' Theorem for any real-world problem.  My interest lies in 
> developing some statistical approach for addressing the subject above 
> and it seems to me that BT is what I should be looking at?  However, 
> what I am specifically interested in is how such a work-up would be 
> developed for a year-on-year situation eg:
>
> I think it is likely that TEHTC could be triggered by a multi-gigaton 
> release of methane from the Arctic Ocean and the Siberian Permafrost 
> in any Northern Hemisphere Summer from now on (multiple physical and 
> non-physical, human positive feedback loops would then kick in).
>
> So, say my estimate (Bayesian Prior) is that for this coming (2019) 
> NHS the chance of this triggering NOT occurring is x%.  The 
> manipulation is then done to calculate the posterior for 2019 - but 
> for every successive year (given the state of the world), isn't it 
> true that the chance of a triggering NOT occurring in the NHS MUST go 
> down? - ie it is just an argument about the scale of the change from 
> year to year?
>
> It seems to be that the posterior for one year becomes the prior for 
> the next year?  Once the prior gets small enough people won't bother 
> with the calculations anyway . .
>
> Does anyone know of any existing work on this topic?  I want to write 
> a plain-English doc about it but I want to have the stats clear in my 
> head . .
>
> Thanks,
>
> Phil.