11 Comments
Oct 22, 2020Liked by Jonathan Bales

The beginning remarks of this reminded me quite a bit of No Country for Old Men, where Anton used coin flips to determine his actions while simultaneously discussing how inconsequential each individual decision was to him - they just...were.

This was a very compelling article, made me think and gave me an updated perspective on a "simple" concept. That's all I can ask for on a Thursday morning!

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Thanks, Nick! I appreciate you reading. Good analogy.

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Oct 27, 2020Liked by Jonathan Bales

Some interesting ideas, Jonathan, but I think especially regarding 5 & 6 you might be underestimating the possibility that the tails are non-linear & that therefore it may worth the additional research. I think that that is often where the most money made - https://www.honestbettingreviews.com/alex-bird-professional-gambler/ and https://www.theguardian.com/sport/1999/jun/02/cricket11 are example I've always liked but you could add Ed Thorp or some of the people who got the better of state lotteries in the U.S. Sure, these are seriously unusual examples and not the way to bet, but makes the point about possible non-linearity of the distribution of unknown outcomes.

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A fair point. I guess I'd say that fits into the "consequential" area...if a decision has the potential to be that, it'd be of obvious (maybe not?) consequence.

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Oct 22, 2020Liked by Jonathan Bales

This was a great read

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Thank you

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Oct 20, 2020Liked by Jonathan Bales

I hope you didn't actually use Paint for that flowchart. Mind mapping software can build things like that much quicker. Lucid Chart (https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/examples/mind_mapping_software) lets you make flowcharts and export them as images for free.

Should save you at least 5 hours.

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haha nah, I used Lucid actually! Very good service...it took me maybe 20 minutes

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Why do I not care or have no opinion on almost everything? Why do I think most decisions really don’t matter very much? - Because of the date and time you were born.

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Years ago a friend talked about the world as maximizers and satisfiers. Let's say we are looking for a couch. I find one that is comfortable, fits the space, budget, and looks good enough. Problem is its the first one I look at. As a satisfier I buy the couch. A maximizer might look for another two weeks to make sure there is not a couch that is superior across some of the attributes, and still may land up with the first couch. Wondering how this maps to your framework, could help my marriage.

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Yeah, could maybe do an article on this...I think I oscillate between the two

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