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The infamous coin toss

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Re: The infamous coin toss

#201

Post by robertlagrant »

Retric wrote: post #198
robertlagrant wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the crux of it, and lines up with what I was saying: > Nowadays, except within specialized philosophical usages, the usage of the term ad hominem signifies a straight attack at the character and ethos of a person, in an attempt to refute their argument.

That doesn’t make the correct usage in this context wrong, or more importantly prevent what you said from both being a logical fallacy and simply rude. I personally would have apologized a while ago, but you do you.

> That doesn’t make the correct usage in this context wrong

Well, it does if I'm being a bit snarky, and not using that snark as a way of dismissing a claim. I'm saying there is no justification for the claim, and that it's taken far more words to claim the thing than it would be to supply a simple disproving example.

> or more importantly prevent what you said from both being a logical fallacy

No, something being not ad hominem doesn't prevent it from being a logical fallacy, but that's not how reason works. You disprove. You don't say, "Well this criticism failed but that doesn't prove it's valid!"

> I personally would have apologized a while ago, but you do you.

But... this is also rude. More so than a little bit of snark.

Start again. What are you trying to achieve here?

Re: The infamous coin toss

#202

Post by sershe »

rerdavies wrote: post #64

Huh. So I wrote the code, and ran the simulation. Now I get it. Investors: 100,000 Iterations: 100 Average worth after 100 iterations: $83.923 Average net worth increases. However the distribution of wealth is skewed dramatically. Winners: 13,704 (net worth of more than $1 at the end) Investors worth What That Guy was worth (the investor who made the most money): $1,171,830.00 He flipped 71 heads and 29 tails. Median…

The whole experiment takes as a premise that merit doesn't matter (coin toss)... and arrives to the obvious conclusion that merit doesn't matter.

Especially since, as someone indicates in another top level comment, the percentages are not even chosen properly, gambling on absolute money is a dumb choice, one should only gamble on log-money. So, a bunch of people making a dumb gamble with no merit involved produce a distribution.

I don't understand why anybody at all cares about this - it's just garbage in, garbage out. The only real-world connection one could make is... don't play lottery, I guess? Oh wait I do understand why people care - that's because this "supports" a social conclusion they already pre-supposed.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#203

Post by sobriquet9 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #180
sobriquet9 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only solution: eat the rich. The only? Maybe not bet 100% of your wealth every time? That's what Kelly criterion is about.

You have to have enough in the first place that trying to support yourself isn't betting 100% of your wealth.

If you have nothing in your checking account, it does not mean your wealth is zero. In real life you can earn more money, in the given example you can't.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#204

Post by robertlagrant »

dontlaugh wrote: post #179
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.

The plumber generally exploits one or two employees. But otherwise your point stands.

> The plumber generally exploits one or two employees. But otherwise your point stands.

It's hard to know where to start with things like this. How does the plumber exploit employees? Why are you assuming anyone exploits anyone by default?

Re: The infamous coin toss

#205

Post by dontlaugh »

robertlagrant wrote: post #204
dontlaugh wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plumber generally exploits one or two employees. But otherwise your point stands.

> The plumber generally exploits one or two employees. But otherwise your point stands. It's hard to know where to start with things like this. How does the plumber exploit employees? Why are you assuming anyone exploits anyone by default?

Labour generates value. An employee generates value and the employer pays the employee only a fraction of the value generated, after paying off all expenses. That is called profit. Marx defines exploitation in the amoral sense, like exploiting natural resources.

Customers don’t get exploited in this way. They generally are also employees of some company that does exploit them, but that is a separate relationship.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#206

Post by Retric »

robertlagrant wrote: post #201
Retric wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t make the correct usage in this context wrong, or more importantly prevent what you said from both being a logical fallacy and simply rude. I personally would have apologized a while ago, but you do you.

> That doesn’t make the correct usage in this context wrong Well, it does if I'm being a bit snarky, and not using that snark as a way of dismissing a claim. I'm saying there is no justification for the claim, and that it's taken far more words to claim the thing than it would be to supply a simple disproving example. > or more importantly prevent what you said from both being a logical fallacy No, something being no…

> Well, it does if I'm being a bit snarky…

No, being snarky in no way changes what’s going on.

> a simple disproving example

Which I provided an hour ago and you haven’t responded, thus disproving your argument here with an example.

> is also rude.

If you acknowledge you’ve been rude then apology is appropriate. Simply ignoring rudeness is poor manors as otherwise people can’t improve. Instead proper manors is to bring up the mistake and offer a minor correction. In person subtle body language is useful, but in text the only option is to be more explicit though still indirect. Thus what I said was quite literally the opposite of being rude.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#207

Post by shove »

robertlagrant wrote: post #157
shove wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we rich-eaters have been surviving on a mono-culture of rich folk and will surely starve without the rich who sacrifice themselves selflessly for our sustenance.

Most people are rich because they own stock that's valuable, because they made or did something that's valuable. Collapse that chain and you replace value creation as a form of mild power with political ability as a way to access direct and high levels of power and things start going wrong fast[0][1][2]. [0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stalinism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequence...…

The power that flows from value creation is “mild”, whereas the power that flows from political acumen is “direct and high”? Man cmon. Power is power. Have you not noticed the entire lobbying industry and who pays for the majority of it?

Re: The infamous coin toss

#208

Post by pclmulqdq »

selcuka wrote: post #51
pclmulqdq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collective also gains in round 2, and each subsequent round. From the intuition that you have about the first round, treat each group with the same amount of money separately, and you will see that money grows in every round. Example: Round 1: 100x$100 (total $10000) -> 50x$60 + 50x$150 (total $10500) Gain of $500 total Round 2: 50x$60 ($3000) -> 25x$90 + 25x$36 ($3150) 50x$150 ($7500) -> 25x$225 + 25x$90 ($7875)…

No, it will approach zero like the individual one. Think of it this way: If everyone's individual wealth approaches zero, why would the total go up? Just run the following simulation in a python REPL: import random POPULATION = 100 INITIAL_MONEY = 1000 ROUNDS = 10000 wallets = [INITIAL_MONEY for _ in range(POPULATION)] for iteration in range(ROUNDS): for person in range(POPULATION): if random.random() > 0.5: wallets[…

The total goes up because not everyone loses wealth at each round. Wealth just gets more concentrated in the hands of the people who win the most.

Also, "5% per round" assumes an infinite number of people. If you run this with 100 people, by the 3rd round, the expected group sizes are non-integers, so you will diverge from the "infinite people" case.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#209

Post by daveFNbuck »

rerdavies wrote: post #64

Huh. So I wrote the code, and ran the simulation. Now I get it. Investors: 100,000 Iterations: 100 Average worth after 100 iterations: $83.923 Average net worth increases. However the distribution of wealth is skewed dramatically. Winners: 13,704 (net worth of more than $1 at the end) Investors worth What That Guy was worth (the investor who made the most money): $1,171,830.00 He flipped 71 heads and 29 tails. Median…

I think the key thing you're missing here is that they were talking about behavior as the number of flips goes to infinity. That long improbable upper end becomes more and more improbable over time. As time goes to infinity, the probability of being in it goes to 0. With a finite population, everyone is ruined.

I ran the same simulation as you. After 100 iterations, the richest one had $71. After another 1,000 iterations, the richest one had $78 (of a total $133). After another 10,000 iterations, the richest one had 10^-165 dollars. They were still an extreme outlier with 95% of the total wealth, but he had almost nothing.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#210

Post by kgwgk »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #209
rerdavies wrote: post #64

Huh. So I wrote the code, and ran the simulation. Now I get it. Investors: 100,000 Iterations: 100 Average worth after 100 iterations: $83.923 Average net worth increases. However the distribution of wealth is skewed dramatically. Winners: 13,704 (net worth of more than $1 at the end) Investors worth What That Guy was worth (the investor who made the most money): $1,171,830.00 He flipped 71 heads and 29 tails. Median…

I think the key thing you're missing here is that they were talking about behavior as the number of flips goes to infinity. That long improbable upper end becomes more and more improbable over time. As time goes to infinity, the probability of being in it goes to 0. With a finite population, everyone is ruined. I ran the same simulation as you. After 100 iterations, the richest one had $71. After another 1,000 iterat…

> With a finite population, everyone is ruined.

With high probability.

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