this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
458 points (98.3% liked)
Not The Onion
20945 readers
1207 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Seeing the insane amount of giant pickup trucks Americans drive, this guy is just a waterdrop in a giant ocean.
They say in the article 0.6% of men. That sounds like a small number, but if you have around the usual 300 Facebook friends, then you know someone.
I never had to give my size to anyone. How do they know everyone's size to come to the 0.6%? That's only the known cases. The penis-size-compensation trucks say otherwise.
As with all things, you can arrive at trustworthy estimates for things by surveying a sampling of people and then applying statistics. You don’t have to ask every person on earth. This is called the law of large numbers.
Also, they are defining micropenis as 2.6 inches so there are probably even more people who don’t meet this definition but would like more size.
But in general, people with a small penis add a few centimeters when asked about their size. Some also add a few inches but no one knows what that ancient system works like. So when I hear a penis size in inches it already sounds small.
Yeah. We’re on a different topic now from “how do they know - no one asked me.”
I would hope they made this very anonymous to reduce any incentive to lie. But I am sure dudes even lie to themselves, so it is probably difficult to get good numbers. Maybe someone has studied how much people lie about this and they used that to adjust the estimates?
Probability is bullshit. If you have 23 people in a room the chances of 2 of them having the same birthday are mathematically 50%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
edit: I keep forgetting you can't make jokes without explaining them to redditors.
I even italicized "mathematic" out of reverence.
No saving y'all.
Can you explain the math?
Adding one more person adds more than one comparison. Assuming birthdays are evenly distributed (they aren't), 2 people have a 1/365.25 chance of sharing a birthday. But adding a third person adds 2 more chances. Adding that 23rd person adds 22 more chances than adding the 22nd person. 1+2+3...+22=253 separate checks, of which only one needs to match.
So does this apply to the problem: 0.6% of people have micropenis. How many friends do you need to have before you’ll know someone?
It doesn’t seem to, because there isn’t any element of comparing them between each other. It’s just a straight percentage chance.
Maybe is you ask the question like this:
If a person with a micropenis is in a room, how many men are needed in that room to have a 50% chance of someone else in there also with a micropenis? And how many women in that room are needed for a 50% chance a woman has a bigger clitoris than that person's micropenis?
Or:
How many men in a room are needed to have a 50% chance someone else has the same penis size?
Yeah that would turn it into more of a birthday problem.
It would also make it downright weird.
So you mean a room full of men talking about their size, or a full scale measuring contest?
Both would be fucking weird though xD
No I was making a joke and everyone decided they were gonna do a full autism about it
Ok boomer, maybe it's time for a little nap. What's wrong with my autism?
Wiki Birthday Problem
I think the point is not how quickly can someone Google it but can he actually explain it, because he brought it up in a situation where it doesn’t apply, meaning he doesn’t actually understand it (ie can’t explain it).
Canconda’s original comment did not have the wiki link which is why I replied. Honestly, dropping 23 possible birthday pairs to reach >50% probability is still not intuitive to me.
Of my OG friend group of ~12 there are two matching birthday pairs. One coincidental and one pair of twins which don’t count.
To grasp it intuitively, I think of it like this.
With the first person, you have 1/365 chance the birthday will be on any given day.
Each person you add to that adds not just another person but also another day that can be a match.
After two people, you still don’t have a match but now you have two days. The third person can match either of those. That’s a lower bar than person #2 had to meet.
By the time the 15th person walks in, the question is: “what are the odds that you share any of these 15 days as your birthday.” And remember, it’s not that that person’s odds are 50%. It’s everything from the original 1/365 chance on up to that fifteenth person, cumulatively, that has a 50% change of a hit.
See how this already sounds a little more likely than just narrowing in on the final final result of two people having the same birthday? The way the problem is phrased makes it sounds like more of a bullseye than it truly is.
So I think part of it is just difficult to grasp intuitively, but it’s also phrased deliberately to throw off your intuition.
I can see it kinda. At the same time you are reducing the unique dates and increasing the people you could match with.
I can't because probability is bullshit lol.
Damn you guys have no sense of humour.
If that was your idea of a joke, I’m afraid you have no idea what’s funny. More likely you are just attempting to laugh off your embarrassment.
Buddy if you tell jokes to make other people laugh... sorry that sucks. Wouldn't' wish that on my worst enemy.
I'm lmao and y'all are shitting bricks about math
You suck at math and we are lmao at your attempts to hide it.
THATS THE JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you daft ass mf
Chill, bro, I’m just joking!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
Very easy to google ngl.
Hello - the birthday problem is interesting but it has no bearing on a simple percentage probability. The reason the odds of two people having the same birthday don’t rise linearly with the number of people is that every time you add someone to the set you also add a new possible birthday to match. You get to compare them to every other member of the group for a chance to match. You’re not just adding 1/365 each time, trying over and over to hit one date. You’re adding new dates to hit as you go.
This doesn’t apply in a simple probability like “0.6% of people have a micropenis so if you know 300 people, odds are you know one.” You really are just adding 0.6 every time you consider one more person in the set.
So… your comment is bullshit.
Damn must suck to be born without a sense of sarcasm.
Oh I was born with one of those. Also a bullshit detector, which is going off at your “I was joking” defense.