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

[Jeff Newmiller]

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On March 19, 2019 10:42:24 AM PDT, Philip Rhoades <phil using pricom.com.au> 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.

-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.