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The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

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Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#11

Post by frogpelt »

axguscbklp wrote: post #5

>"He didn’t understand the value of good, hard, honest work," his older brother, James, later bemoaned. "He thought those people were fools." I wouldn't call people like that fools, and pretty certainly the world would fall to pieces without them. That said, I don't think I can really blame anyone too much for not valuing good, hard, honest work in this world where many people are simply born rich and many others bec…

1. What do you consider "rich"?

2. Do you honestly not know of anyone who has gotten rich by good, hard, honest work?

EDIT: Let me rephrase question 2: Do you honestly feel that most "rich" people got that way by being dishonest or gaming the system?

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#12

Post by yters »

smabie wrote: post #9
axguscbklp wrote: post #5

>"He didn’t understand the value of good, hard, honest work," his older brother, James, later bemoaned. "He thought those people were fools." I wouldn't call people like that fools, and pretty certainly the world would fall to pieces without them. That said, I don't think I can really blame anyone too much for not valuing good, hard, honest work in this world where many people are simply born rich and many others bec…

What is good, hard, honest work, exactly? I certainly work hard, but is it honest? I'm not sure. I certainly don't intentionally go around breaking all the rules I can, but I do try and use my brain to figure out every possible loophole and advantage I can. I don't think exploiting loopholes is dishonest, but I'm sure some would disagree. For example, when playing board or card games, I always try and discover some d…

This seems pretty hard, or at least tedious. Much bigger time investment than a normal 9-5.

"He began to spend every waking minute in front of a television, watching infomercials and game shows, in hopes of identifying some kind of opportunity to get rich quick."

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#13

Post by foobarian »

smabie wrote: post #9
axguscbklp wrote: post #5

>"He didn’t understand the value of good, hard, honest work," his older brother, James, later bemoaned. "He thought those people were fools." I wouldn't call people like that fools, and pretty certainly the world would fall to pieces without them. That said, I don't think I can really blame anyone too much for not valuing good, hard, honest work in this world where many people are simply born rich and many others bec…

What is good, hard, honest work, exactly? I certainly work hard, but is it honest? I'm not sure. I certainly don't intentionally go around breaking all the rules I can, but I do try and use my brain to figure out every possible loophole and advantage I can. I don't think exploiting loopholes is dishonest, but I'm sure some would disagree. For example, when playing board or card games, I always try and discover some d…

Maybe this is a necessary evil in a day and age when a society is not all on the same page with respect to morals and values. It sure would be nice to have everyone proactively choose to act in a way that matches the "spirit" of the law or rules, and maybe this did used to happen in more homogeneous/authoritarian societies? But without that synchronization it seems to fall to the legislative bodies to codify as much as possible of the various moral behavior which is very hard in practice and easy to exploit.

This is hard to discuss with precision because there is a lot of subjective judgment involved. Cutting lines is not against the law, so should you do it to avoid wasting time waiting? Occasionally a rightmost lane is in practice used mostly for right turns, but marked as both straight and turn. Majority of people seem to understand it's a jerk move to block that lane for the turning traffic, so it's usually empty, but every now and then some greedy SOB takes it to overtake the herd. Personally I find this kind of thing despicable and do what I can to prevent it.

I'm sure there is some evolutionary biology connection to fairness and why we behave/feel this way.

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#15

Post by gmueckl »

LocalH wrote: post #6
golemotron wrote: post #2

It's funny how a picture of him has the caption "Michael Larson was never interested in following the rules" when, actually, he was the only one who bothered to figure out the rules.

Michael’s run on PYL is often called a “scandal” as if he cheated. The only scandal was that CBS tried like hell to figure out a way to deny him his winnings.

In a way, this is very much a story of a classic hack: the victims build a system that they belive to be foolproof without proper proof. The hacker manages to find a weakness through careful analysis and then goes on to exploit it in a spectacular and kind of fun way that isn't all that harmful. I don't think CBS was harmed that much by that amount of price money.

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#16

Post by Mountain_Skies »

The attention it brought to the game show may have been worth more than CBS paid out. They quickly changed the game mechanics so it couldn't be so easily exploited a second time which made it a one time cost. Wonder if there was a ratings boost after the episode, even if short lived.

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#17

Post by burrows »

LocalH wrote: post #6
golemotron wrote: post #2

It's funny how a picture of him has the caption "Michael Larson was never interested in following the rules" when, actually, he was the only one who bothered to figure out the rules.

Michael’s run on PYL is often called a “scandal” as if he cheated. The only scandal was that CBS tried like hell to figure out a way to deny him his winnings.

Where do you fall on the Phil Ivey edge sorting incident?

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#18

Post by mc32 »

firethief wrote: post #7

The article keeps making it sound like he met his comeuppance, even as they finally reveal that he ran off with $3M and died of natural causes before he was caught. They never seem to substantiate the pervasive tragic tone. The whole whole thing reminds me of the existentialist treatment of the "Touch of Death" in Men Who Stare at Goats ... His schemes were often successful, but ultimately meaningless because death c…

To me it seems more like his beating the system gave him false confidence that he could find flaws in systems which would be lucrative but he tended to rely on illicit schemes that never worked out for him.

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#19

Post by strken »

frogpelt wrote: post #11
axguscbklp wrote: post #5

>"He didn’t understand the value of good, hard, honest work," his older brother, James, later bemoaned. "He thought those people were fools." I wouldn't call people like that fools, and pretty certainly the world would fall to pieces without them. That said, I don't think I can really blame anyone too much for not valuing good, hard, honest work in this world where many people are simply born rich and many others bec…

1. What do you consider "rich"? 2. Do you honestly not know of anyone who has gotten rich by good, hard, honest work? EDIT: Let me rephrase question 2: Do you honestly feel that most "rich" people got that way by being dishonest or gaming the system?

I don't know of anyone who got rich by good, honest, hard work without also getting insanely lucky. I know of people who got insanely lucky without being good or honest.

Re: The Man Who Got No Whammies (2015)

#20

Post by dsfyu404ed »

foobarian wrote: post #13
smabie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is good, hard, honest work, exactly? I certainly work hard, but is it honest? I'm not sure. I certainly don't intentionally go around breaking all the rules I can, but I do try and use my brain to figure out every possible loophole and advantage I can. I don't think exploiting loopholes is dishonest, but I'm sure some would disagree. For example, when playing board or card games, I always try and discover some d…

Maybe this is a necessary evil in a day and age when a society is not all on the same page with respect to morals and values. It sure would be nice to have everyone proactively choose to act in a way that matches the "spirit" of the law or rules, and maybe this did used to happen in more homogeneous/authoritarian societies? But without that synchronization it seems to fall to the legislative bodies to codify as much…

>It sure would be nice to have everyone proactively choose to act in a way that matches the "spirit" of the law or rules, and maybe this did used to happen in more homogeneous/authoritarian societies?

Every society that I can think of that had that kind of homogeneity did it by marginalizing, often violently, the crap out of anyone who stepped out of line. No thank you.

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