You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

warbo comments on What are your contrarian views? - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: Metus 15 September 2014 09:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (806)

Comments (806)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: warbo 22 September 2014 11:57:14AM 2 points [-]

Buying one $1 lottery ticket earns you a tiny chance - 1 in 175,000,000 for the Powerball - of becoming absurdly wealthy. NOT buying that one ticket gives you a chance of zero.

There are ways to win a lottery without buying a ticket. For example, someone may buy you a ticket as a present, without your knowledge, which then wins.

So buying one ticket is "infinitely" better than buying no tickets.

No, it is much more likely that you'll win the lottery by buying tickets than by not buying tickets (assuming it's unlikely to be gifted a ticket), but the cost of being gifted a ticket is zero, which makes not buying tickets an "infinitely" better return on investment.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit