Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The infamous coin toss

ergodicityeconomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 258 posts

Re: The infamous coin toss

#121

Post by vharuck »

robertlagrant wrote: post #110
LeonB wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who should own media? Private people, or the state? I mean of course — who should own media.. we have precisely two choices, and no possibility to imagine anything else! What you’ve put forward is known as a false dichotomy. That is a situation where you present two options as if they are the only options. Oh wow — in your response Re government you have literally stated a dichotomy. Alright. I feel bad now. I have…

Unless you're paid by the word, it'd be better to skip all that and state your third option.

Media could be owned by the staff. That's what the Hell Gate website does.

https://hellgatenyc.com/about-us

We could also restrict ownership by audience size. So any one person or non-media organization cannot own or control multiple media organizations if their total audience size is above X people. Audience size would be prorated for partial ownership or control (i.e., owning 1% of a newspaper that serves 100K people would count 1K people towards one's total). This is an off-the-cuff alternative, so assume the regulations would be written by actual lawyers who consider edge cases.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#122

Post by badcppdev »

robertlagrant wrote: post #108
LeonB wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I have friends that are plumbers and friends that own factories. Both plumbers and factory owners do indeed have opportunities to exploit people. But my plumber friend can only exploit one customer at a time, where as a factory owner multiplies that ability. Multiplication is a powerful operator.

How does the plumber exploit people with his/her tool ownership?

The key word is that a plumber "can" exploit one customer at a time.

A plumber can exploit a customer by charging an exorbitantly high rate for work. They can choose to exploit their position of power as a supplier of services where a customer has an urgent need.

Exploitation is not charging a high rate for work. It is charging a higher rate when a customer is not in a position to shop around.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#123

Post by kgwgk »

hgsgm wrote: post #114
didgeoridoo wrote: post #5

The +50% / -40% is cleverly chosen, because it seems like the bet is weighted toward the gambler if you’re just using a naïve expected value. However, if you were to make it “double your money” (+100%), it would become clear that the only fair downside would be “halve your money” (-50%). For these values, the “trick” becomes much more obvious: that increases in repeated games need to be far greater in percentage term…

No, the trick is less obvious. It's even more shocking that a hugely higher expectedly value upside (+100% , -60%) ((2x+.4x)/2 = 1.2x) is still losing long-term.

You think that anyone would be shocked with (+100%, -75%) if you put it in terms of "heads you double your amount, tails you halve it twice"?

It would be kind-of obvious that if you play a sequence of games you need two heads for each tails just to break even. (If you're lucky and get a streak of heads you can win big though.)

Re: The infamous coin toss

#124

Post by LeonB »

robertlagrant wrote: post #108
LeonB wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I have friends that are plumbers and friends that own factories. Both plumbers and factory owners do indeed have opportunities to exploit people. But my plumber friend can only exploit one customer at a time, where as a factory owner multiplies that ability. Multiplication is a powerful operator.

How does the plumber exploit people with his/her tool ownership?

They have the opportunity to exploit people through asymmetric knowledge. Any other questions?

Re: The infamous coin toss

#125

Post by LeonB »

robertlagrant wrote: post #110
LeonB wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who should own media? Private people, or the state? I mean of course — who should own media.. we have precisely two choices, and no possibility to imagine anything else! What you’ve put forward is known as a false dichotomy. That is a situation where you present two options as if they are the only options. Oh wow — in your response Re government you have literally stated a dichotomy. Alright. I feel bad now. I have…

Unless you're paid by the word, it'd be better to skip all that and state your third option.

I point out your false dichotomy and you say what is the third option? I have been very clear there are more two more than three but many many options.

To be clear - the two options you’ve presented are not actual options that anyone is arguing for. So presenting a single alternative would be to fall into an obvious trap. I ought not to have replied to disingenuous debate in the first place I get that.

But perhaps someone else can - in future - spot a false dichotomy and say “oh - avoid this nonsense.”

Re: The infamous coin toss

#126

Post by vxNsr »

vharuck wrote: post #121
robertlagrant wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're paid by the word, it'd be better to skip all that and state your third option.

Media could be owned by the staff. That's what the Hell Gate website does. https://hellgatenyc.com/about-us We could also restrict ownership by audience size. So any one person or non-media organization cannot own or control multiple media organizations if their total audience size is above X people. Audience size would be prorated for partial ownership or control (i.e., owning 1% of a newspaper that serves 100K peop…

Everything you’ve proposed is the media being owned by the government with a single extra step.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#127

Post by LeonB »

robertlagrant wrote: post #110
LeonB wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who should own media? Private people, or the state? I mean of course — who should own media.. we have precisely two choices, and no possibility to imagine anything else! What you’ve put forward is known as a false dichotomy. That is a situation where you present two options as if they are the only options. Oh wow — in your response Re government you have literally stated a dichotomy. Alright. I feel bad now. I have…

Unless you're paid by the word, it'd be better to skip all that and state your third option.

> Unless you're paid by the word

Ad hominem.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#128

Post by soVeryTired »

In the first regime, where we calculate at the population level, we stop and average the wealth of the whole population after every coin toss. So if E[X_t] is the expected sum of wins and losses from the coin toss,

W_t = exp(k E[X_t])

Whereas the wealth of any individual grows like

W_t = E[k exp(X_t)]

There's a result called Jensen's inequality that says that

f(E[X]) > E[f(X)]

for any random variable X and any convex function f (exp is one such function). In a sense, I think this all just falls out of Jensen's inequality.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#129

Post by Tarsul »

if I go into the casino with 67 bucks and make 1,5 times what I have, I will own 100 bucks. If I go into the casino with 100 bucks and lose a third only (not 40%!) then I will own 67 bucks.

Thus, +50% and -40% are not the right arithmetic pairs. It should've been +50% and -33%. It's even more intuitive to say 3/2 and 2/3. Waiting for a matician who can explain better, but this whole story is more of a parlor trick than anything else.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#130

Post by robertlagrant »

badcppdev wrote: post #122
robertlagrant wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the plumber exploit people with his/her tool ownership?

The key word is that a plumber "can" exploit one customer at a time. A plumber can exploit a customer by charging an exorbitantly high rate for work. They can choose to exploit their position of power as a supplier of services where a customer has an urgent need. Exploitation is not charging a high rate for work. It is charging a higher rate when a customer is not in a position to shop around.

How does the plumber owning tools create that situation?
Post reply on HN