I think a lot of people who talk about being n-th percentile in some domain implicitly only include the set of people who participate in the activity at all. That’s a bit less clear-cut than “everyone alive”, but makes more sense to talk about and compare against imo.
Yeah, but my point is that the people who have filtered themselves out contain useful information. It’s not the case that if the other 97% of the population started snowboarding, it would be semi-random if they were better than me. Almost all of these people would be worse, and that’s part of why they don’t snowboard (they’re not in good enough shape, not coordinated enough, or for various reasons can’t or won’t practice enough).
Similarly, I suck at running because it’s pretty hard for me to run a mile at a reasonable pace without breaks (while the other runners I talk to will do 5 miles faster than me as a warmup). But most of the 85% of people who don’t run couldn’t run a quarter mile at any speed, and a non-trivial portion of them[1] would literally die if they tried.
There’s a separate question of “What if everyone became as dedicated to the sport as I am?” but I think the dedication itself counts for something and people should be proud of it.
But most of the 85% of people who don’t run couldn’t run a quarter mile at any speed
Any speed? I’d be rather surprised if anywhere near 42.5% of the population (especially if also counting people outside the US) would be unable to “run” a quarter mile in 10 minutes if they tried to.
Personally I can run for one (1) minute before I’m too out of breath to continue; a quarter-mile is short enough that walking for a majority of the time would still finish it in under ten minutes, but I’d certainly struggle to run it.
I guess it depends a lot on how strongly motivated they are. You could probably force most people to do a quarter mile run with threats and violence. I was thinking of “If this person tried do a quarter mile run (with no walking) would they succeed or give up?”
I think this is interesting as both a semantic and empirical question! If we’re allowing people to walk, or to run a few steps at a time and then take a break, the number will be a lot higher than if we’re only accepting a gait that is a) continuous, and b) would merit disqualification from a walking race on ~every stride. Even on the second definition, I’d expect that a large majority of non-elderly, non-infant people could do it if they really had to. But I’m not sure how to come up with a good estimate.
I think a lot of people who talk about being n-th percentile in some domain implicitly only include the set of people who participate in the activity at all. That’s a bit less clear-cut than “everyone alive”, but makes more sense to talk about and compare against imo.
Yeah, but my point is that the people who have filtered themselves out contain useful information. It’s not the case that if the other 97% of the population started snowboarding, it would be semi-random if they were better than me. Almost all of these people would be worse, and that’s part of why they don’t snowboard (they’re not in good enough shape, not coordinated enough, or for various reasons can’t or won’t practice enough).
Similarly, I suck at running because it’s pretty hard for me to run a mile at a reasonable pace without breaks (while the other runners I talk to will do 5 miles faster than me as a warmup). But most of the 85% of people who don’t run couldn’t run a quarter mile at any speed, and a non-trivial portion of them[1] would literally die if they tried.
There’s a separate question of “What if everyone became as dedicated to the sport as I am?” but I think the dedication itself counts for something and people should be proud of it.
Mostly elderly people.
Any speed? I’d be rather surprised if anywhere near 42.5% of the population (especially if also counting people outside the US) would be unable to “run” a quarter mile in 10 minutes if they tried to.
Personally I can run for one (1) minute before I’m too out of breath to continue; a quarter-mile is short enough that walking for a majority of the time would still finish it in under ten minutes, but I’d certainly struggle to run it.
I guess it depends a lot on how strongly motivated they are. You could probably force most people to do a quarter mile run with threats and violence. I was thinking of “If this person tried do a quarter mile run (with no walking) would they succeed or give up?”
I think this is interesting as both a semantic and empirical question! If we’re allowing people to walk, or to run a few steps at a time and then take a break, the number will be a lot higher than if we’re only accepting a gait that is a) continuous, and b) would merit disqualification from a walking race on ~every stride. Even on the second definition, I’d expect that a large majority of non-elderly, non-infant people could do it if they really had to. But I’m not sure how to come up with a good estimate.
There are increasing levels of involvement:
people who don’t do it at all
people who tried once, then abandoned it
people who do it once in a long time, just to remind themselves how it feels
people who do it as a hobby
people who are obsessed by it
people who do it as a profession
So maybe the first question is which group you identify with or where you want to get, and that determines who you should compare yourself to.