This doesn’t apply to the particular case you’re considering of identity confirmation, but for getting people to grok really how unlikely ‘technically possible’ events are, I once kind of jokingly proposed sports analogies for extremely improbable events.
The basic level is ‘the next major league American football game you watch ends with a score of 2-0.’ (The very uncommon ‘safety’ score of tackling someone in their own end zone produces 2 points under most circumstances) This would be quite difficult to achieve, requiring a very defense-favoring game.
The next level is the same, but a score of 4-2. Both sides need to be awesome at defense.
The next level is 100-4. The same side needs to be brilliant and terrible at offense, and the other brilliant and terrible at defense.
And of course you can multiply it by requiring that multiple of these occur in sequence.
The problem is, this is way too hard to quantify. You’d obviously be pulling it out of nowhere, which would hurt rather than help.
This doesn’t apply to the particular case you’re considering of identity confirmation, but for getting people to grok really how unlikely ‘technically possible’ events are, I once kind of jokingly proposed sports analogies for extremely improbable events.
The basic level is ‘the next major league American football game you watch ends with a score of 2-0.’ (The very uncommon ‘safety’ score of tackling someone in their own end zone produces 2 points under most circumstances) This would be quite difficult to achieve, requiring a very defense-favoring game.
The next level is the same, but a score of 4-2. Both sides need to be awesome at defense.
The next level is 100-4. The same side needs to be brilliant and terrible at offense, and the other brilliant and terrible at defense.
And of course you can multiply it by requiring that multiple of these occur in sequence.
The problem is, this is way too hard to quantify. You’d obviously be pulling it out of nowhere, which would hurt rather than help.