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>COWEN: Then you keep on playing the game. So, what’s the chance we’re left with anything? Don’t I just St. Petersburg paradox you into nonexistence? >BANKMAN-
by alexb_ 4y ago
>COWEN: Then you keep on playing the game. So, what’s the chance we’re left with anything? Don’t I just St. Petersburg paradox you into nonexistence?
>BANKMAN-FRIED: Well, not necessarily. Maybe you St. Petersburg paradox into an enormously valuable existence. That’s the other option.
This logic is literally "You either win the lotto or you don't, 50/50 chance"
- ben_w 4y agoNot quite. The question is defined in a way that the EV of bet is positive, even though repeatedly doing it gets you an arbitrarily high chance of (moral) bankruptcy. The original thing being referenced is St. Petersburg lottery, and each round of that is 50/50: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox
- alexb_ 4y agoI'm more talking about "well it could work out" reasoning as to why ignoring the St Petersburg Paradox is somehow justified.
- FireBeyond 4y agoRecent Powerball bets have a positive EV too. It'll just cost you maybe $800M and 262M entries to get there.
- ALittleLight 4y agoIt's not though, it's just guaranteed failure. The only stable state is that you lose everything and you will reach that stable state in about 2 coin flips. If it's always good to flip, you will eventually (and quickly!) reach nothing. I'm actually somewhat impressed by someone who articulated a stupid logic about how to live life and then actually followed through.