Seth's Blog : Kurtosis is not a disease (but getting it wrong is painful)
Kurtosis is not a disease (but getting it wrong is painful)
The mass producers of the world (from ketchup to school) tried to persuade us that by grouping everyone into a tight bundle of normal, everything would become more efficient and we'd all do better. In stats, this is called leptokurtosis.
The race for leptokurtosis spread like wildfire. It implies control and reliability and compatibility. In insists that people who don't eat normal food are a pain in the neck, that folks who are differently abled and need an accommodation are somehow costing the rest of us something.
You can have any color car you want as long as it's black, and if you can't reach the pedals or read the fine print, well, maybe you shouldn't be driving.
What we've discovered, though, is that a platykurtic distribution is actually more efficient, more powerful and more fair.
Platykurtic? Yes, with wide, long tails. Like a platypus. Everyone welcome. Designed for humans, not a machine.
When we build an adjustable seat, when we make things that work for more and more people, we don't spend more. We get more.
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