Are you sure? If the population of observers are uniformly distributed over a time interval, I calculate that they should each multiply their observation of the age of their civilization by root 2 in order minimize their collective error. However, I don’t see this estimate on the Wikipedia page and assume they have more complex assumptions about the distribution of observers.
… I also assume that the civilization lifetime is uniformly distributed over an unknown interval. I suppose it would be more reasonable to assume it is normally distributed over an unknown interval or—even more accurately—extremely right tailed.
Are you sure? If the population of observers are uniformly distributed over a time interval, I calculate that they should each multiply their observation of the age of their civilization by root 2 in order minimize their collective error. However, I don’t see this estimate on the Wikipedia page and assume they have more complex assumptions about the distribution of observers.
… I also assume that the civilization lifetime is uniformly distributed over an unknown interval. I suppose it would be more reasonable to assume it is normally distributed over an unknown interval or—even more accurately—extremely right tailed.