4 ms·

I think life is way more complex than the poker. Yes the mindset could be useful, but mindset without proper data is not going to help a lot. Here is what I'm

I think life is way more complex than the poker. Yes the mindset could be useful, but mindset without proper data is not going to help a lot. Here is what I'm thinking: How about we go up a level, and accept that life is basically random and a lot is decided by luck (your gene is luck, your childhood education is also luck, these two pretty much decide a lot of things), as indicated in the article, but maintain a (meta) mindset that can manoeuvre around or even mitigate negative emotions? For example: - Realize that probability is useful in poker but not that useful in life, thus it is impossible to calculate mathematical expectation. - Learn to harden one against impulsive emotional acts (impulsive purchase, suicidal thoughts, etc.). - Learn to control one's material requirements and save some $$ for rainy days. - Keep connections active so when really bad days come maybe someone can get you out.

kqr 4y ago
Probability is incredibly useful in real life. But it takes deliberate practise. You can improve your "sense of uncertainty" and assign fairly accurate probabilities to things. This process is known as calibration. It also helps to know some probabilistic identities to derive the same probability multiple ways and see if there's consistency in your assessment.
hervature 4y ago
> Realize that probability is useful in poker but not that useful in life, thus it is impossible to calculate mathematical expectation. That's very backwards. Sure, "exact" expectation no. But you can add errors bars to all your estimates, that's the basis of statistics. Being able to correctly estimate things and adjust for uncertainty is incredibly useful in life. Unlike poker, you have time to actually punch things into a calculator and consider different scenarios if you want to be super diligent but most things can be intuited if you have a solid grasp of probability/statistics. To be super pragmatic, the whole thing with fake news and misinformation wouldn't exist if people just applied Bayes theorem. For instance, people will say something like P(vaccine is dangerous | bad pharma company) = 1 but then P(bad pharma) = 0 in the sense that Pfizer doesn't want to kill people.

kqr 4y ago

Probability is incredibly useful in real life. But it takes deliberate practise. You can improve your "sense of uncertainty" and assign fairly accurate probabilities to things. This process is known as calibration. It also helps to know some probabilistic identities to derive the same probability multiple ways and see if there's consistency in your assessment.

hervature 4y ago

> Realize that probability is useful in poker but not that useful in life, thus it is impossible to calculate mathematical expectation. That's very backwards. Sure, "exact" expectation no. But you can add errors bars to all your estimates, that's the basis of statistics. Being able to correctly estimate things and adjust for uncertainty is incredibly useful in life. Unlike poker, you have time to actually punch things into a calculator and consider different scenarios if you want to be super diligent but most things can be intuited if you have a solid grasp of probability/statistics. To be super pragmatic, the whole thing with fake news and misinformation wouldn't exist if people just applied Bayes theorem. For instance, people will say something like P(vaccine is dangerous | bad pharma company) = 1 but then P(bad pharma) = 0 in the sense that Pfizer doesn't want to kill people.