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Why do we square the errors in OLS? Why not use true values?

go ahead and Google it and you'll never get a straight answe...
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26
(first year LRM econometrics student)
electric stead indirect expression
  08/26/26
Squaring has a real cost. Because a big error is punished so...
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26
This is like watching prince tp read high school math books ...
Poppy wonderful plaza masturbator
  08/26/26
I thought it would be an easy question for poasters to answe...
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26
Anyone?
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26
Just measure at the actual errors. What's wrong with that? D...
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26
"What I still don't understand is why OLS regression is...
Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles
  08/26/26


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Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:12 AM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

go ahead and Google it and you'll never get a straight answer. Ask Claude Fable and you'll get wrong answers only, I bet

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093497)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:14 AM
Author: electric stead indirect expression

(first year LRM econometrics student)

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093500)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:17 AM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

Squaring has a real cost. Because a big error is punished so hard, a single wrong data point can drag the whole line towards itself. One student recorded as 8 hours and 3 marks, by a typo, will bend the line more than the other seven points together.

The absolute version is far more resistant to that, and it has a name, mean absolute error. It is a good choice when your data has outliers you cannot remove. It is used less often mostly because of the corner, and because squared error has clean mathematics behind it.

https://teachyourselfcoding.com/courses/learn-machine-learning-from-first-principles-using-javascript/lesson/why-we-square-the-error/?page_tab=overview

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093513)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:19 AM
Author: Poppy wonderful plaza masturbator

This is like watching prince tp read high school math books all over again

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093516)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:20 AM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

I thought it would be an easy question for poasters to answer

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093518)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:21 AM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

Anyone?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093520)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 12:22 AM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

Just measure at the actual errors. What's wrong with that? Do we really just like to square things because it's easier to work with all positive integers?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50093523)



Reply

Date: August 26th, 2026 8:40 PM
Author: Flesh vengeful kitchen fat ankles

"What I still don't understand is why OLS regression is still the default solution to the problem of linear regression. It seems to me that in the majority of practical situations, the costs associated with errors are linear or approximately linear. If I order 2 extra parts, I incur twice the unnecessary cost as compared to if I order 1 extra part. Therefore, the optimal solution that OLS produces will not correspond to an optimal solution in reality."

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/470626/why-is-using-squared-error-the-standard-when-absolute-error-is-more-relevant-to

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5897341&forum_id=2#50095388)