J_Thomas comments on Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased) - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 September 2007 08:05PM

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Comment author: J_Thomas 15 September 2007 06:51:06PM 0 points [-]

Genes that are bad for many of the individuals that carry them but that have large jackpots can be selected. As for how you tell whether the occasional large jackpot makes up for the common failure, it takes a long time to tell.

With lotteries you can judge by the house. They're in business to make money, they have wealth that they got from previous lotteries, it makes sense the odds are against you in the longterm. But that reasoning doesn't work in general.

Human beings who see jackpot events happen will sometimes gamble for long times without winning a jackpot. If they didn't they couldn't win. They lose cumulatively while they wait. It takes as long time to find out by trial and error whether they win on average or not, and if they don't try long enough they don't find out what the odds really are.