prior probability

Update (1/15): If it’s not wrong for players to steal signs (and not a single baseball player on the Houston Astros was punished by the Commissioner of Major League Baseball), why is it wrong for team managers or the front office to steal signs?

According to Wikipedia, sign stealing in baseball has a long and venerable history: the oldest recorded instance of a baseball team attempting to steal signs dates back to 1876! Furthermore, it turns out that sign-stealing in itself is not wrongful, but rather what matters (in terms of moral blameworthiness in baseball) is what types of signs are stolen, by whom they are stolen, and the ways in which they are stolen. See, for example, the following passage from Wikipedia (footnotes omitted):

According to the unwritten rules of baseball, stealing the signs that are given by the third base coach, or those of the catcher by a baserunner on second base, is acceptable, and it is up to the team giving the signs to protect them so they are not stolen. However, a batter peeking in to see the catcher’s signs is considered a violation. The signs the catcher sends to the pitcher to call for the next pitch are considered more “sacred” than the signs a third base coach relays to the batter.

What is the level of speed limit compliance outside the United States? (In the U.S., very few drivers comply with posted speed limits.) Also,I wonder if there is any positive correlation between speed limits and the frequency of highway accidents?

Hat tip: u/bpm, via Reddit

Muilenburg is the Boeing Company’s disgraced former CEO, the one who was ultimately responsible for the development of Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 jets. (Two of these flawed jets crashed in 2018, killing 346 innocent souls.) Via Wikipedia: “Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against a person who, through criminal negligence, allows another person to die.” This Wikipedia entry provides the example of the crash of Aeroperu Flight 603, which was caused by a piece of duct tape that was left over the static ports (on the bottom side of the fuselage) after cleaning the aircraft. The hapless employee who had left the tape was eventually charged with negligent homicide. Instead of being behind bars, however, Muilenburg received millions of dollars’ worth of Boeing stock and other assets. (As an aside, could this egregious injustice be one reason why democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are ahead in the polls?)

Tit for tat is a famous game theory strategy in repeat games. It consists of cooperating on the first move, then subsequently copying the other player’s move. It is also supposed to be a forgiving strategy; otherwise, a single defection could generate an unending cycle of mutual defections. Assuming the current conflict between the United States and Iran can be modeled as a repeat game, such as an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, then the key question is: which side is most likely to forgive a previous defection or act of retaliation from the other side?

“Trembling Hand” Update (1/11): The Iranian government has confessed to accidently shooting down a commercial Ukranian jetliner.

Section 5 of Rule 8 of the official 2019 NFL Rulebook (available here) defines what conduct constitutes “pass interference.” Although Section 5 contains four separate articles and over 800 words, Article 4 specifically states that “blocking more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage by an offensive player prior to a pass being thrown is offensive pass interference.” (Canadian Football, by contrast, does not have an analogous rule; see here.) My favorite sports commentator Jim Rome discusses the finer points of the NFL’s offensive pass interference (OPI) rule with CBS Sports Rules Analyst Gene Steratore, but they miss the larger question: does football really need this rule?