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>"I'll give you $100 if you punch the polar bear." Instead of me saying I don't believe anything about this story, let's have a thought experiment: how badly w

by eMSF 4y ago

>"I'll give you $100 if you punch the polar bear." Instead of me saying I don't believe anything about this story, let's have a thought experiment: how badly would you have to need $100 right here and now to punch someone hard enough to bleed, nevermind the consequences, to have it? But yeah, I don't believe one bit of this.

nieve 4y ago
Unfortunately there are some people who'll harm others for a reasonably small amount of money even if they've already got plenty. I've encountered people who'd do this even if they were comparatively well off.
lupire 4y ago
As explained in the comment, the puncher didn't know that it would smash hidden glasses and bleed. It was a dare, not a job. It's not about the payout, it's about the challenger having a little skin in it.
irrational 4y ago
I believe it. I’ve met many people who would do far stupider things for $100.
SamPatt 4y ago
You don't believe that boredom, entitlement, and poor decision-making occasionally combine to produce behavior like this? This is middle school stuff. Plenty of adults act this way under certain circumstances.
- wpietri 4y ago
  For sure. Traders are (or at least were) a special breed. It was mostly young white men, a lot of them with quick reaction times and poor impulse control. The job required outsized self-confidence, and then rewarded it with a lot of money, which often turned into fast living. I worked with some who were pretty decent people, but the median trader on the floor then was an arrogant, braying jackass.
wpietri 4y ago
I can't prove that it was true, but I can prove that it was a story going around at the time (although this has it as $25): https://books.google.com/books?id=NyeVNsWvJHAC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=cbot+polar+bear&source=bl&hl=en&sa=X&#v=onepage&q=cbot%20polar%20bear&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=NyeVNsWvJHAC&pg=PA32&lpg=P... Whether or not it actually happened, it's entirely believable. Traders, at least there and then, were huge gamblers. Anything, any time. Something I saw with my own eyes was a thing that happened when trading was slow. Somebody would get a clear plastic trash bag, declare a size of bill (e.g., $5 or $20), and walk around with it. People would write their name on the designated banknote and drop it in. Eventually they'd shake it up, draw one of the bills, and give the sack to the person named on it. I saw one of the cleaning staff win a bundle of cash this way. Or another thing I saw happen. One night I went out drinking with our trading clerks. All of them were aspiring traders, and all of them quickly learned the numeric hand signals used to indicate bid-ask spreads. Sitting at a table with them and couple of random women picked up at the bar, I saw two of the clerks doing number signals back and forth as one of them was chatting up one of the women. When I asked later what was going on, they were betting on whether he was going to sleep with the girl that night. And of course Michael Lewis's book Liar's Poker is named after the fondness traders have for a betting game: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liars-poker.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liars-poker.asp So did it happen? I don't know. But I do know our CBOT clerks were buzzing about it at the end of the day, so I don't think it was just completely made up.

by eMSF 4y ago

nieve 4y ago

Unfortunately there are some people who'll harm others for a reasonably small amount of money even if they've already got plenty. I've encountered people who'd do this even if they were comparatively well off.

lupire 4y ago

As explained in the comment, the puncher didn't know that it would smash hidden glasses and bleed. It was a dare, not a job. It's not about the payout, it's about the challenger having a little skin in it.

irrational 4y ago

I believe it. I’ve met many people who would do far stupider things for $100.

SamPatt 4y ago

You don't believe that boredom, entitlement, and poor decision-making occasionally combine to produce behavior like this? This is middle school stuff. Plenty of adults act this way under certain circumstances.

wpietri 4y ago
For sure. Traders are (or at least were) a special breed. It was mostly young white men, a lot of them with quick reaction times and poor impulse control. The job required outsized self-confidence, and then rewarded it with a lot of money, which often turned into fast living. I worked with some who were pretty decent people, but the median trader on the floor then was an arrogant, braying jackass.

wpietri 4y ago

I can't prove that it was true, but I can prove that it was a story going around at the time (although this has it as $25): https://books.google.com/books?id=NyeVNsWvJHAC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=cbot+polar+bear&source=bl&hl=en&sa=X&#v=onepage&q=cbot%20polar%20bear&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=NyeVNsWvJHAC&pg=PA32&lpg=P... Whether or not it actually happened, it's entirely believable. Traders, at least there and then, were huge gamblers. Anything, any time. Something I saw with my own eyes was a thing that happened when trading was slow. Somebody would get a clear plastic trash bag, declare a size of bill (e.g., $5 or $20), and walk around with it. People would write their name on the designated banknote and drop it in. Eventually they'd shake it up, draw one of the bills, and give the sack to the person named on it. I saw one of the cleaning staff win a bundle of cash this way. Or another thing I saw happen. One night I went out drinking with our trading clerks. All of them were aspiring traders, and all of them quickly learned the numeric hand signals used to indicate bid-ask spreads. Sitting at a table with them and couple of random women picked up at the bar, I saw two of the clerks doing number signals back and forth as one of them was chatting up one of the women. When I asked later what was going on, they were betting on whether he was going to sleep with the girl that night. And of course Michael Lewis's book Liar's Poker is named after the fondness traders have for a betting game: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liars-poker.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liars-poker.asp So did it happen? I don't know. But I do know our CBOT clerks were buzzing about it at the end of the day, so I don't think it was just completely made up.