Do you really think that you cold make 1 trillion similar claims and only be wrong once?
No, I would run out of statements I was that confident in long before I reached a trillion.
To put it differently, suppose Warren Buffet comes up to me, and suggests a game. I drop the pen, if it falls, I give him ten cents, otherwise, he gives me everything he owns (about $50 billion). By your estimate, he's ripping me off to the tune of about 5 cents, but I think I would accept the bet, which suggests my estimate is not as high.
There are two problems with converting probability estimates like that into bets. First, there is more than a 1/10^12 chance of cheating in that game, by putting a strong magnet in the ceiling for example. That issue does not apply in non-game contexts. And second, utility is not linear in money over that interval; Warren Buffet would value a ten cent gain less than 1/10^12 as much as avoiding a $10^11 loss.
No, I would run out of statements I was that confident in long before I reached a trillion.
Nitpicking.
First, there is more than a 1/10^12 chance of cheating in that game, by putting a strong magnet in the ceiling for example.
You know that you're not cheating, and it doesn't seem likely that Buffet would cheat when doing so would make him less likely to win. Of course, maybe there's a 10^-10 chance that Buffet would go insane and cheat anyway, but can we just assume a least convenient possible world where we ignore those interfering issues.
Or come up...
Today's post, Some Claims Are Just Too Extraordinary was originally published on 20 January 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was A Fable of Science and Politics, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.