Romashka comments on Positive Bias: Look Into the Dark - Less Wrong

45 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 August 2007 03:55AM

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Comment author: Romashka 06 December 2014 03:13:31PM 0 points [-]

Teacher: 'In 'Beast and Man in India' John Kipling describes a custom of how gypsies ransomed crows to Hindus. A gypsy would catch a crow, peg it on the ground spread-eagled so that it cannot escape, and when another bird would fly to attack it, the first one, defending itself, catches it with her legs. When the gypsy has enough crows, he goes to a shop of some rich Hindu and offers to let them go, for a price, or eat them for dinner. The Hindu pays one or two paisas for a bird. Let the p of the crow not flying away when it is pegged down be 90%, p of it catching another one be 95%. If by the end of the day the gypsy has 16 paisas, what is the least number of birds that will have been on the ground?' ...and the correct answer is zero:)