Lukeprog's summary of how to measure anything was helpful.
It talks about the equivalent bet test.
Has anyone made a tool where you can put in the thing you're estimating and set a $ bet amount, and it'll show you two wheels spinning, and then it'll pause the spin and ask you if you like them both equally, or if you need to change your estimate?
That'd be quite neat.
I recently published a web app for doing the equivalent bet test based on what I've read in the Scout Mindset book.
Link to the web app:
https://equivalent-bet-test.vercel.app
Link to the open source code for the app:
https://github.com/jamescdericco/equivalent-bet-test
I hope this helps! If anybody finds issues with it, please let me know!
This isn't a web app, but if you know your way around programming, I have a Racket script that does this. It looks like this when you use it (from the command line):
~ λ demon
Out of the blasted gates of hell spawns a demon -- the demon of epistemology. It thunders, I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED. WHAT PROPOSITION DO YOU PONDER? REMEMBER, I KNOW THE TRUTH OR FALSITY OF ALL THINGS.
> the european union will exist in year 2100
CHOOSE ONE --
[1] IF THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL EXIST IN YEAR 2100, I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF NOT, YOU GET NOTHING.
[2] IF MY 1d10 DIE ROLLS A 5 OR LOWER [=====-----], I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF IT ROLLS HIGHER, YOU GET NOTHING.
[3] YOU ARE UNSURE.
> 1
CHOOSE ONE --
[1] IF THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL EXIST IN YEAR 2100, I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF NOT, YOU GET NOTHING.
[2] IF MY 1d10 DIE ROLLS A 7 OR LOWER [=======---], I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF IT ROLLS HIGHER, YOU GET NOTHING.
[3] YOU ARE UNSURE.
> 1
CHOOSE ONE --
[1] IF THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL EXIST IN YEAR 2100, I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF NOT, YOU GET NOTHING.
[2] IF MY 1d10 DIE ROLLS A 8 OR LOWER [========--], I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES. IF IT ROLLS HIGHER, YOU GET NOTHING.
[3] YOU ARE UNSURE.
> 2
VERY WELL, the demon sighs. YOUR CREDENCE THAT THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL EXIST IN YEAR 2100 IS 75%.
Source code:
#! /usr/local/bin/racket
#lang cli
(require racket/list)
(require racket/string)
(help (usage "Figure out how certain you are that something is true using the equivalent bet test."))
(program (demon)
(displayln (string-append "Out of the blasted gates of hell spawns a demon -- the demon of epistemology. It "
"thunders, I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED. WHAT PROPOSITION DO YOU PONDER? REMEMBER, I KNOW "
"THE TRUTH OR FALSITY OF ALL THINGS."))
(display "> ")
(letrec ((lower-bound 0)
(upper-bound 10)
(prop (read-line))
;; TODO: use regexes here to match i at beginning. also fix me, we, us
(prop-upper (string-replace (string-upcase prop) " I " " YOU "))
(consequent "I BESTOW ON YOU A BEAUTIFUL PALACE OF UNIMAGINABLE RICHES")
(visualize-prob (lambda (n)
(string-append "["
(string-join (make-list n "=") "")
(string-join (make-list (- 10 n) "-") "")
"]")))
(run (lambda (min max)
(if (<= (- max min) 1)
(/ (+ max min) 2)
(let ((n (case '(min max)
['(lower-bound upper-bound) 5]
['(lower-bound 5) 1]
['(5 upper-bound) 9]
[else (quotient (+ min max) 2)])))
(begin
(displayln
(string-append
"\nCHOOSE ONE --\n"
"[1] IF " prop-upper ", " consequent ". IF NOT, YOU GET NOTHING.\n"
"[2] IF MY 1d10 DIE ROLLS A " (number->string n) " OR LOWER " (visualize-prob n) ", "
consequent ". IF IT ROLLS HIGHER, YOU GET NOTHING.\n"
"[3] YOU ARE UNSURE."))
(display "> ")
(case (read-line)
[("1") (run n max)]
[("2") (run min n)]
[("3") n]
[else (run min max)])))))))
(let ((percentage (* (/ 100 upper-bound) (run lower-bound upper-bound))))
(displayln
(string-append "VERY WELL, the demon sighs. "
"YOUR CREDENCE THAT " prop-upper " IS " (number->string percentage) "%.")))))
(run demon)
Nice! I don't personally need this since I have my command-line utility (see old comment below) that does the same, but I really like the equivalent bet test and have been using it regularly for a couple of years or so. So I strongly endorse this project nonetheless!