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The infamous coin toss

ergodicityeconomics.com

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Re: The infamous coin toss

#221

Post by coryfklein »

sobriquet9 wrote: post #171
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 only solution: eat the rich. The only? Maybe not bet 100% of your wealth every time? That's what Kelly criterion is about.

Uh do you mean "bet 0% of your wealth every time"? Or does betting some number greater than 0% lead to net positive expected gains for an individual?

Re: The infamous coin toss

#222

Post by kevinwang »

Tarsul wrote: post #129

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 th…

Either wager (+50%/-40% or +50%/-33%) would be profitable wagers for a gambler in a casino to take. If you ever found a casino offering bets like that, you would never have to work again (unless they sued and won against you to get their money back). No casino would ever knowingly offer a wager with negative expected value for them.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#223

Post by jncfhnb »

Fredkin wrote: post #212
jncfhnb wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many times your money is not well deserved. Many times it’s due to luck, inheritance (see: luck), or dirty tactics. Regardless, the problem is very rarely that you “earned” money. Almost everyone is fine with you getting wages or perhaps entrepreneurial income. The problem is that wealth allows people to become more wealthy without really doing anything. Wealth compounds so that the rich get richer. And often the ris…

In a "normal" environment, it doesn't make sense to me that wealth begets more wealth passively without doing anything: A) If your wealth is in cash in the bank, you are providing the bank with deposits. The bank can now make cheaper loans which helps others. But if these loans default, your bank fails and you get bailed-in. Assuming no government intervention comes to save you. B) If your wealth is in stocks or corp…

While it is problematic that bail outs happen to such a scale, the risk of things going south isn’t really a strong counter effect. You “can” lose. But you generally will not. Especially in the long run. And even if you do in particular, lose your investments, most wealth will beget more wealth. It’ll be a wealth transfer in dollars or real assets from you to a different wealthy party rather than society at large.

The economy improves and so assets do become more valuable, inevitably. We should be taxing that inevitable passive growth of society’s progress to benefit society.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#224

Post by sobriquet9 »

coryfklein wrote: post #221
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.

Uh do you mean "bet 0% of your wealth every time"? Or does betting some number greater than 0% lead to net positive expected gains for an individual?

Kelly criterion defines the optimum ratio.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#225

Post by robertlagrant »

digging wrote: post #220
robertlagrant wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Media could be owned by the staff Agree. That would be private people owning it, though.

Well, the state is also people, so state-owned is also private people owning it then. Either that, or you could acknowledge the dramatic material differences between workers owning their own output and a rich individual not-worker owning their output.

Er no, people don't own the state. People do own businesses.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#226

Post by LeonB »

robertlagrant wrote: post #193
LeonB wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were claiming that I was being paid per word. That’s an “ad hominem” attack because it is against me. Please refrain from doing that to people, whether me or others.

> You were claiming that I was being paid per word. Please quote where I claimed that.

I thoroughly disliked every moment spent interacting with you. You’ve admitted above that you were being snarky. That’s what you put into the world. I want you to understand that when you use your time to be snarky to people it is hurtful and wrong. Please do better.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#227

Post by robertlagrant »

Retric wrote: post #206
robertlagrant wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bri…

I'm not ignoring what you said; I just didn't see it. This is an internet forum, not a live conversation. If you assume that proves something...I don't know. Not much point interacting with someone whose imagination exceeds their grasp on reality.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#228

Post by robertlagrant »

Retric wrote: post #181
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.

There is far more than just 3 options and suggesting any specific option is again falsely limiting the discussion. (1) Government ownership, (2) ownership by a single rich person, (3) ownership by a nonprofit, (4) ownership by the employees, (5) ownership by the readers… However, suggesting just one additional options focuses excessive attention to that specific option. Mentioning how much Twitter has changed going f…

(1) is state ownership; all the others are private. Those are the same two options I listed; you just mentioned some subcategories of private.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#229

Post by LeonB »

Retric wrote: post #206
robertlagrant wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bri…

Thanks for trying, @retric.

You were very patient.

Re: The infamous coin toss

#230

Post by dragonwriter »

Retric wrote: post #182
robertlagrant wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's snarky, but it's not ad hominem.

It’s not the main attack but you can have many fallacies in a single argument. Attacking the length of an argument rather than the thrust of the argument is an Ad hominem fallacy. It’s also snarky.

> Attacking the length of an argument rather than the thrust of the argument is an Ad hominem fallacy.

Its a fallacy but its not ad hominem. (Its non sequitur, but than most fallacies are specialized forms of non sequitur, so that doesn’t really narrow it down much beyond saying it is fallacious.) There's not, AFAIK, a common catchy name specifically for “argument to the peripheral stylistic features of the opponent’s argument”, though there maybe should be, because in practice its a common fallacy.

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