If 99.9% fail and you see one that didn't, then would it be surprising that it didn't? No! It's not 100%, so there must be some example. For that one it's not surprising.

More precisely, it's not surprising that one exists. It may be surprising that this particular one survived, just as it wouldbe surprising that it's my neighbor who wins the lottery next week. But it's likely that somebody will, so if somebody has won, it won't be a surprise that somebody did.

Yes, it seems like surprise has to depend on your point of view. There’s an enormous difference between “someone somewhere won the lottery” and “I won the lottery,” even if it’s describing the same event.

It’s a question of how many other possibilities are considered similar to the one that happened. From a zoomed-out perspective, one win is as good as any another.

It doesn't make it a common outcome overall, but it makes it a common outcome for it to appear in the newspaper, right? It's just different meanings of "common".

Yes, that's what I meant.

I didn’t say that, nor use any self-reference.

> When something unusual appears in the news, that doesn’t make it common.

This in particular isn’t even close to what I said, which was: rare events can be unsurprising in large datasets — as is the case with both dice rolls and restaurants succeeding.

If rare events are unsurprising then I think you've defined surprising events out of existence? I mean, sure, someone will win the lottery, but it would very surprising if it happened to you.

I guess this is just point of view. "Someone won the lottery" and "I won the lottery" describe the same event from very different perspectives.