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benelliott comments on Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Not quite always
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/07/31/a_lottery_game_with_a_windfall_for_a_knowing_few/
That's not an argument for lotteries, that's an argument for the observation that given sufficiently large incentives to game complex system , some complex systems will be gamed.
I notice that benelliott did not imply that it was.
It would seem, then, that lotteries are also a potential beneficiary for people who understand statistics sufficiently well. Similarly, someone from the local MENSA chapter makes a steady $0.5M/yr as a professional poker machine gambler. Or at least he did back when I participated in MENSA.
Its actually just one example, but a well documented one, of lottery tickets being bought by people correctly applying statistical reasoning, in direct contrast to your blanket claim to which it is replying.
Your non-sequitur is correct though, it is not an argument for lotteries.
Sigh. I wonder how that quip became controversial :-/
Note that I did not say anything about who buys lottery tickets or whether there are any specific situations in which statistically savvy people might decide that buying a great deal of lottery tickets is a good bet. My statement was about lotteries and in particular it implied that lotteries are extremely profitable for entities running them (that's why they are a government monopoly) and that the profits come out of pockets of people the great majority of whom do not realize how ridiculously bad the expected payoff on a lottery ticket is. Sure, there are exceptions but I'm talking about the general case.
I do agree with you that lotteries take from the stupid and give to the government, and to a much lesser extent, the non-governmental clever. I also have a distaste for it and do not buy tickets as a matter of course, which generally are worth about 40 cents on the dollar.
When clear, interesting, and well-documented exceptions to a general rule are served up, I prefer that the last word on them not be a dismissive one. This seems to me to lead to a more distorted view of reality than is necessary. I am particularly concerned about the tendency among people to say, effectively, "90% = 100%," that is, if there is a strongish trend of something to ignore the fact that there are real exceptions to that trend. Especially when those exceptions might make you money, or explain some otherwise inexplicable behavior on the part of a clever group of people.
That sounds... awesome... when you put it like that! Lotteries may become my new favourite taxation method.
It gives the government a bit of a moral hazard in its role as arbiter and funder of the education system.
And of course any good could be picked and given to the government as a monopoly and then one might think this a good way to fund the government as the funding becomes "voluntary." The government might as well give itself a monopoly for selling marijuana, cocaine, heroin, X, etc. and that might then become our NEW new favourite taxation method.
Historically, a government monopoly was a very popular method for funding governments -- see e.g. salt.
As noted by SMBC.
If I read correctly, the question is whether government vice monopolies make the government less eager to suppress the vice.
We have data on this. Some jurisdictions (a number of US states, the province of Ontario) have government liquor monopolies. Does that influence the drinking rate, or the level of alcohol education? Does it make liquor more or less available? My impression is that it makes liquor slightly less convenient; the moral hazard isn't a big problem in practice.
Actually, I think the question wasn't whether vice is suppressed less, the question was whether the government has an incentive to keep the population dumb enough to not see through its scheme.
In any case, it's a mistake to think of government as a monolithic entity with a single will. It's more useful to visualize government as a large number of poorly coordinated tentacles -- some of them push, some of them pull, some of them just wildly flail about...
It's quite common for different government programs to provide opposite incentives for some behaviour.
Ah, I see your point now.
I think I will agree with it, too, and say that the proper way to deal with the problem is to specify boundary conditions (aka assumptions aka limiting cases) under which the statement is strictly true, and then point out that some of these boundary conditions can be breached (and so result in different outcomes or conclusions).
In my case, if this were a considered statement about games of chance (and not a throwaway remark), I should have mentioned that proper statistical analysis can, and sometimes does, lead to the turning of the tables and finding specific ways of betting which have positive expected value. The classic case, I think, is MIT kids in Las Vegas, there's even a book about it.