Possibly Nathan Calvin on Twitter in August: If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two

August 5th about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535

September 4th.. still about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2095854095139537064

November 11th.. Alex Lawsen on Twitter, referencing Nathan's post (above):

https://x.com/lxrjl/status/2120640689620861335

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morganf a day ago | parent | next [-]

It's much much older. As a kid growing up in NY in the 90s, I heard many times the version of this saying, "one cockroach on the floor means one hundred behind the wall."

	▲	mkehrt a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's different, though. The point of the ant thing is sometimes things just happen, but if they happen twice, that's a very different matter.
	▲	mk12 19 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		These sayings also causes needless panic over non-infesting cockroaches like ectobius pallidus that commonly wander inside by accident.

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gibspaulding 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I suspect you are right for the current flush. I know I heard it via Zvi's SubStack, but that was probably in a quote of Nathan Calvin.