5 ms·

> Put more extremely, if I offer you a 99% chance to take make one billion dollars (legally) and a 1% chance of being killed, would you take it? I definitely wo

> Put more extremely, if I offer you a 99% chance to take make one billion dollars (legally) and a 1% chance of being killed, would you take it? I definitely wouldn't. I would even if it offered 50+% of getting killed. The small chance you strike a billion is worth the risk.

stavros 4y ago
How much money would the gain have to be for it to not be worth a 50% chance of getting killed?
- ozim 4y ago
  I don't think that would make a difference for me if someone offers more money when my life situation is kind of nice. What would make a difference would be my life situation - if it would be worse or totally shitty I could take even 25% for a billion. That was kind of theme of "Squid Games".
  - WJW 4y ago
    Sure but at some point the money gets too low to risk it even if you are in the dumps, no? Would you take 1 million for 50%? 10k for 50%? 10 bucks for 1%? 1 dollar for 1%? At some point it goes from a life changing amount of money to just "meh" money.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  I would guess the uptake will fall sharply somewhere around 10 million, which is still a life-changing amount of money for 99% of the population.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Huh, it's very odd to me that you'd take an even chance of dying to win $10m... My amount would be much, much higher, potentially infinite.
    - robocat 4y ago
      Any job that earns money has an implicit acceptable $ for death risk, because all jobs have a risk of death (proxy measurement of injury using ACC rates in New Zealand). Your sum risk might be reduced (e.g. your job pays health insurance), but many jobs increase your risk e.g. just driving to work is dangerous. Of course your primary finite resource is usually time (years of life), and your object function usually relates to quality of life (not $) . . . Win $ for risk of death is a poor metric.
cm2012 4y ago
I wouldn't do it for 50%, I can see how some heuristics would get you there. - Right now we spend 33% of our life working, nd the stress of work impacts another 33%. - A billion is also way more than out life expected income, but there's a big marginal reduction of value to money. But you also get it now when you're younger rather than parsing it out. - As a random 25 year old male, you would only have a 1 in 16 chance of surviving to retirement age at 60 on your own. I personally would only take the deal for 2.5% chance of death though.
acjohnson55 4y ago
I find that fascinating. I'm not even a millionaire, yet money is rarely a constraint for me and life is great. The only reason I can fathom desiring a billion dollars is the leverage it would give me to influence the world in what I think is a positive direction. But when it comes to money for my own sake, $10M is about the most I can imagine having use for.
cthalupa 4y ago
It's a fun thought experiment under the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Even at an infinitesimally low chance of getting the billion dollars, if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, you could argue that it is worth it from a selfish perspective. In all the worlds where you get the money, your life is improved. In all the worlds where you don't, well, you're dead, so you don't really care. Obviously, this doesn't take into account the impacts to everyone else in the worlds where you died.

stavros 4y ago

How much money would the gain have to be for it to not be worth a 50% chance of getting killed?

ozim 4y ago
I don't think that would make a difference for me if someone offers more money when my life situation is kind of nice. What would make a difference would be my life situation - if it would be worse or totally shitty I could take even 25% for a billion. That was kind of theme of "Squid Games".
- WJW 4y ago
  Sure but at some point the money gets too low to risk it even if you are in the dumps, no? Would you take 1 million for 50%? 10k for 50%? 10 bucks for 1%? 1 dollar for 1%? At some point it goes from a life changing amount of money to just "meh" money.
ricardobeat 4y ago
I would guess the uptake will fall sharply somewhere around 10 million, which is still a life-changing amount of money for 99% of the population.
- stavros 4y ago
  Huh, it's very odd to me that you'd take an even chance of dying to win $10m... My amount would be much, much higher, potentially infinite.
  - robocat 4y ago
    Any job that earns money has an implicit acceptable $ for death risk, because all jobs have a risk of death (proxy measurement of injury using ACC rates in New Zealand). Your sum risk might be reduced (e.g. your job pays health insurance), but many jobs increase your risk e.g. just driving to work is dangerous. Of course your primary finite resource is usually time (years of life), and your object function usually relates to quality of life (not $) . . . Win $ for risk of death is a poor metric.

cm2012 4y ago

I wouldn't do it for 50%, I can see how some heuristics would get you there. - Right now we spend 33% of our life working, nd the stress of work impacts another 33%. - A billion is also way more than out life expected income, but there's a big marginal reduction of value to money. But you also get it now when you're younger rather than parsing it out. - As a random 25 year old male, you would only have a 1 in 16 chance of surviving to retirement age at 60 on your own. I personally would only take the deal for 2.5% chance of death though.

acjohnson55 4y ago

I find that fascinating. I'm not even a millionaire, yet money is rarely a constraint for me and life is great. The only reason I can fathom desiring a billion dollars is the leverage it would give me to influence the world in what I think is a positive direction. But when it comes to money for my own sake, $10M is about the most I can imagine having use for.

cthalupa 4y ago

It's a fun thought experiment under the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Even at an infinitesimally low chance of getting the billion dollars, if the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, you could argue that it is worth it from a selfish perspective. In all the worlds where you get the money, your life is improved. In all the worlds where you don't, well, you're dead, so you don't really care. Obviously, this doesn't take into account the impacts to everyone else in the worlds where you died.