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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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BANKMAN-FRIED: Well, not necessarily. Maybe you St. Petersburg paradox into an enormously valuable existence. That’s the other option.

I'll just interject here that to me, this sounds completely insane. For those less familiar with decision theory, this not an abstruse philosophical question - it's simply a mathematical fact with probability approaching 1 (specifically, 0.49^n for large n), SBF will destroy the world.

I'd never heard of this guy until a few days ago. I saw that same interview and had the same reaction. I was maybe thinking there was something about the "St. Petersburg paradox" that I didn't understand. But it seems basically like a "double or nothing" bet that grade-schoolers can make with a coin-flip. It seemed like it was polite to do at least one "double or nothing" bet. Highly risky to do two in a row, but socially acceptable if you wanted to show off that you were a daredevil. And if you do three in a row you have a gambling problem.

Maybe financial institutions should start offering serious money on double or nothing bets during the interview. And if anyone does it more than three times you happily pay them the money from the bet and then don't fucking hire them.

Maybe financial institutions should start offering serious money on double or nothing bets during the interview. And if anyone does it more than three times you happily pay them the money from the bet and then don't fucking hire them.

My new career: interview at financial institutions and take their gambles, but secretly use kelly criterion w.r.t. my total wealth.