lessons from the "child raping" thread

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
Especially notice the vast journey the position undertakes, from the incarnation that started the ruckus ("I would never let you anywhere near my daughter") proceeding through a wide range of fallback positions
until it bears no resemblance to the originally contested analogy. It's a clinic.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think more than a clinic of rhetorical tricks it's a clinic of denial. the tricks are just the means of reconciling within one persons mind the real world with the one in which cris is correct. basically, if you want to see how a person fools himself, this is the place to be right now.

[ QUOTE ]
If people had a greater ability to recognize logical fallacies perhaps we'd see fewer of them from politicians and reporters and enjoy a slightly higher level of public discourse.

[/ QUOTE ]

too bad formal education rarely seems to trump emotional needs. there may not be a tonic for this, sadly.

[eyekast]

[ QUOTE ]
Jack high? He called me with jack high?!?

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i wish he won

[AtlBrvs4Life]

How about the argument that a solid foot brige doesn't have a 99.99999% chance of holding up?

P.S. I have no absolutely no evidence to back this claim up.

[mikeyvegas]

Seriously Paul, what is your motivation for posting here on 2+2? From reading your blog (which I think is fantastic) you seem to have a great amount of Poker knowledge that many visitors here could benefit from you. I'm just hoping 2+2 will get to experience some of that same level of poker writing here.



Mr. Phillips said
[ QUOTE ]
Ah, but one of my most charming features is that I feel no obligation to the rail. Everything you see from me is for my own amusement, not yours; yours is incidental.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Ionphore]

There is also a solid foot bridge 100 meters to your left. You'll have
to walk an extra 200 meters to cross the solid foot bridge and get to the
same point on the other side. You are 99.99999% sure the rope bridge
would support you and that you will not fall.

Which bridge do you take?

If you remove the solid foot bridge from the scenario, then of course you
will take the rope bridge. Yes, there is a small risk that it might break,
or that you might slip and fall, but it's a very miniscule risk. But with
the solid foot bridge nearby, even that miniscule risk on the rope bridge
is an unnecessary risk.


Honestly I guess it depends how much is in the pot, that will dictate which bridge I take...

[Knockwurst]

Paul, you raise some interesting points, but isn't it also true that a risk-benefit analysis should take into account considerations other than expected value -- even in a gambling situation. For example, shouldn't someone be willing to give up a little positive ev if the risk of ruin is present, particularly if they have an opportunity to find themselves in an even greater ev situation down the line. This would seem to come up in tournament poker all the time.

Likewise, can't the situation arise that the cost is so infinitisemal and the benefit is so great that its logical to make the play even if the odds are against you. For instance, if we all had the option to put one penny into a worldwide lottery that had a 20% vig and routinely had 1 billion participants, couldn't one justify playing even though the chances were 1 in a billion minus the 20% vig because the cost was so small but the life changing reward would be so great?

[Prevaricator]

I'd take the risk. Unless I felt like getting a little more exercise than usual crossing a bridge, I don't think the risk is substantial enough to spend three times the amount of time on it. You do have to draw the line somewhere though, I just think that this isnt it.

A similar question but with different implications:

You are an officer of justice; you have two people in a room, one who you know to be a murderer, and one you know to be innocent. You have two alternatives; you can send both of them to jail, or you can set them both free. What do you do? What about two people guilty of murder and one who is innocent? Now consider 9 guilty people and one innocent person. Where do you draw the line?

[Paul Phillips]

[ QUOTE ]
Paul, you raise some interesting points, but isn't it also true that a risk-benefit analysis should take into account considerations other than expected value -- even in a gambling situation. For example, shouldn't someone be willing to give up a little positive ev if the risk of ruin is present, particularly if they have an opportunity to find themselves in an even greater ev situation down the line.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely. And I guess dying is the "risk of ruin" in the "life EV" department. These are valid considerations but they can only be done in the context of analyzing the comparative EV of the decisions. The central point is that you can't run around avoiding every choice that carries risk of ruin. If the lifetime odds of the rope bridge breaking were one in a trillion trillion then it'd be pretty foolish to waste all those precious minutes.

The math of this decision would look different if we put a value on minutes of life unlived; each trip over the rope bridge would have a smaller -EV than the last (compared to the constant -EV of the solid bridge.) Each trip over the rope bridge gambles all your remaining minutes of life to keep from losing one, but at such a nice price!

How much positive EV you're willing to give up to avoid risk of ruin is a completely personal decision.

[ QUOTE ]
Likewise, can't the situation arise that the cost is so infinitisemal and the benefit is so great that its logical to make the play even if the odds are against you. For instance, if we all had the option to put one penny into a worldwide lottery that had a 20% vig and routinely had 1 billion participants, couldn't one justify playing even though the chances were 1 in a billion minus the 20% vig because the cost was so small but the life changing reward would be so great?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, aka "non-linearities in the marginal utility curve." The common (reverse) example is a wealthy person being given a chance to bet his entire net worth on a coin flip and being offered a 2-1 payout. From an EV perspective you cannot even think of refusing this, but the wealthier someone is the more certain they are to refuse it.

Everything you've said is on target but it's somewhat tangential to the thesis. You always start by comparing EV. Other factors can move the decision but you can't analyze them without first considering comparative EV.

[Paul Phillips]

[ QUOTE ]
You are an officer of justice; you have two people in a room, one who you know to be a murderer, and one you know to be innocent. You have two alternatives; you can send both of them to jail, or you can set them both free. What do you do? What about two people guilty of murder and one who is innocent? Now consider 9 guilty people and one innocent person. Where do you draw the line?

[/ QUOTE ]

As soon as there are 1001 guilty men we can jail everyone without violating the advice given by any common expressions.

However, questions like this don't lend themselves to numerical analysis. It's like asking how many people you'd torture to cure cancer. There is no answer.

[riverboatking]

while i hesitate to challenge the collective wisdom of 2+2 its sees as though these rhetorical "problems" hold very little practical consideration.
Paul you mention how walking over the solid bridge will cost you 56 days of leisure time, and when framed like that of course it seems ludicrous to do so.
however time does not function like cingular wireless minutes, ie: rolling over unused minutes from one month to the next.
what you are in fact losing by walking over the solid bridge is ONE minute each way per day, not 56 days of leisure. and it is only through the clever use of rhetoric that any semblence of a drastic difference between the two options is made.
and while i appreciate that this example is being used as an analogy, and in many cases i agree with the suppositions you are propagating, i think that using these types of analogies are a lazy way of making a point.
and while this topic as well as prevaricator's quandry raise interesting and stimulating philosphical questions they exist completely outside the realm of reality.
i would love for someone to present a situation where a minister of justice would be faced with such a dilemma as raised by prevaricator.

and while i in no way wish to condemn esoteric philosophical debate (which i throughly enjoy), i just see so many people apply such notions to questions of practical considerations.

ps. feel free to rip this post to shreds.