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I don't think the advice doesn't apply (they still claim Jane made a good decision, even though it led to a bad outcome: their point is that Jane should keep ma

I don't think the advice doesn't apply (they still claim Jane made a good decision, even though it led to a bad outcome: their point is that Jane should keep making good decisions, and not worry about bad outcomes because you can't control luck — if you mostly make good decisions, luck won't matter in the long run), it's just that it's pretty much useless because > "Probability of getting it — you cannot know the exact probability, but estimate it the best way you can (remember the bet with a friend)" is the hard part. Jane's case was clear (good decision), but what about Mike? Is there a proportion of his savings he should have invested that would have turned his "bad decision" into a "good one"? We have no signal to tell us what the probability of any cryptocurrency going up or down is over, say, 6 months (they've all gone up and down completely arbitrarily). Basically, finding the probability of any particular "success" (or actually, a failure) will easily tell you how much you should risk. And that's what it's like with the most of life decisions as well: we don't know the probability — not even the ballpark range. Likelihood that any one person you meet is going to be your life-long partner is basically nil: but we still invest in building relationships before fully committing to either decide they are not, or increase the probability that they will be. But we still do that relationship building investment based on very few signals (appearance, short chats and potentially what social circle someone is from if from a shared acquaintance).

kqr 4y ago
There is no probability to know in the sense you mean -- probability is what we call our personal assessment of the situation, incorporating the (little) knowledge we have. So sure, there is your probability. Will you make money knowing it? That's the question you're alluding to. (As a concrete example: there is no "true" probability of rain six days from now. Either it rains or it doesn't. But a skilled meteorologist can give you a probability that would probably make you a little money over the climate average. Both the climate average and the meteorologist's assessments are correct probabilities. They just reflect different amounts of information.)
- necovek 4y ago
  I was not referring to discreet outcomes at all (the old joke about everything having a 50% chance: it either happens or it does not). My point is that with the available information when making most life decisions, we usually have no idea at all of even the ballpark chances of something turning one way or another. Basically, the advice from the article is to incorporate luck into your estimations (both good and bad), and to use that to determine if a decision is good or bad, and then only go with good decisions (like a poker player would). And don't stress over bad (or good) outcomes if they were mostly due to really bad luck (i.e. something improbable has happened). But if you don't know if chances of something happening are 10% or 90%, how do you incorporate that into your decision making? What I am saying is that in life, we implicitely work to reduce the range (eg for a romantic partner, get to know them much better), but we've already decided to invest that much time with very slim chances of them turning out to be our lifelong partners.

kqr 4y ago

There is no probability to know in the sense you mean -- probability is what we call our personal assessment of the situation, incorporating the (little) knowledge we have. So sure, there is your probability. Will you make money knowing it? That's the question you're alluding to. (As a concrete example: there is no "true" probability of rain six days from now. Either it rains or it doesn't. But a skilled meteorologist can give you a probability that would probably make you a little money over the climate average. Both the climate average and the meteorologist's assessments are correct probabilities. They just reflect different amounts of information.)

necovek 4y ago
I was not referring to discreet outcomes at all (the old joke about everything having a 50% chance: it either happens or it does not). My point is that with the available information when making most life decisions, we usually have no idea at all of even the ballpark chances of something turning one way or another. Basically, the advice from the article is to incorporate luck into your estimations (both good and bad), and to use that to determine if a decision is good or bad, and then only go with good decisions (like a poker player would). And don't stress over bad (or good) outcomes if they were mostly due to really bad luck (i.e. something improbable has happened). But if you don't know if chances of something happening are 10% or 90%, how do you incorporate that into your decision making? What I am saying is that in life, we implicitely work to reduce the range (eg for a romantic partner, get to know them much better), but we've already decided to invest that much time with very slim chances of them turning out to be our lifelong partners.