Probability

[beenherebeforeagain]

I got to thinking about something.

I know, it's always a disaster when that happens, but...

The lottery is capitalism and socialism. Capitalism because a lot of your money goes to the state or whomever is in charge of the lottery. Socialism because the winner of the lottery gets a portion of your money and it's kind of like you're also handing some of it over to them too.

It's accepted as a tax on people who can't do maths

 

[Stevicus]

Every week I enter Menards's contest to win a $1000 shopping spree.
Every week I fail to win. ("Lose" is too negative a word for me.)
Every week there are 2 possible outcomes:
Win
Not win
Every week for the last year or so I have a 50% chance of winning.
The odds against my not-win record are 2^52 to 1.
Clearly, there is a conspiracy against me.

I bet @Polymath257 has some rip'n good yarns about probability.

I think I saw too much Star Trek as a kid. Whenever Spock would calculate the odds, they would always seem to beat the odds.

 

[Revoltingest]

Maybe we both exhausted our good karma surplus; and we shouldn't blame God

I'll blame Voldemort then.

 

[Revoltingest]

I think I saw too much Star Trek as a kid. Whenever Spock would calculate the odds, they would always seem to beat the odds.

I suspect that he just guessed at them,
& gussied up his answer with faux precision.
Vulcan humor is very sophisticated & dry.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I had a logic (aspect of philosophy) prof who once used the same argument as to how he could win at the races. I suspected he believed himself, so I shut up, as I wanted to pass the course. There was an outside chance he was waiting for somebody to have the guts to demonstrate how wrong he was, but I wasn't about to chance that. I didn't place that bet, and as luck would have it, the coin landed on heads, and I passed the course. If it woulda landed on tails I woulda flunked.

Man, I would have spoken up.
Couldn't have helped it.

This has mostly served me well in life (I'm pretty charming when I want to be IRL, which would probably surprise most!)
But it is a risk.