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Would you "roll the dice" on your life?

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GulAtiCa said:
terrisus is correct with his statistics. The probability of being outside India in at least 1 out of 25 rolls is very high.

I'm happy with my life, I wouldn't change it for anything.
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Yeah, I definitely understand people being happy with their life and not wanting to change it, even if the odds are in favor of it being "better."

Just baffling to see people in here think that you're basically going to end up in some disease-filled place working for pennies. I thought GAF was better at mathematics than this >.>
 
terrisus said:
Yeah, I definitely understand people being happy with their life and not wanting to change it, even if the odds are in favor of it being "better."

Just baffling to see people in here think that you're basically going to end up in some disease-filled place working for pennies. I thought GAF was better at mathematics than this >.>
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How do you figure the odds are in your favor of getting a better life?
 
Manmade, think of the odds question this way.

You have a coin. There is a 50% chance of flipping heads and a 50% chance of flipping tales.

If you flip the coin once, there is a 50% chance at getting heads. If you flip the coin again, there is still a 50% chance at getting heads. However, the chance of getting heads twice in a row is only 25% since there are four possible outcomes, each with the same probability of happening (heads/heads, heads/tails, tails/heads, tails/tails).

After 10 rolls, you 99.9% chance of rolling something other than heads on one or more of those rolls, even though for a given roll, the chance of rolling heads is always 50%.
 
Moppet13 said:
Yeah, I don't quite understand it. I see how it figures you won't end up in India, but better than your current living I don't see that?
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Let's say you're doing better than 95% of the world.
Then:

terrisus said:
If the odds of ending up worse off are 95% per roll, then that changes it to:


int rollCounter = 0;
int howAmIDoing = 0;
for(rollCounter <= 25)
{
if(roll100sidedDice()<=5)
return howAmIDoing++;
rollCounter++;
}
return howAmIDoing;


Please go test this.
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Basically, it's the same exact thing as the India situation, just adjusting 14% to 5%
 
globalrichlist.com is putting me in the top 0.8% of income (including benefits) worldwide.

25 rolls gives me a 5% chance of making more than that, ignoring everything else but money.

That said, I like being tall, and am in the top 0.1% of height for males worldwide. I like being smart. I am decent looking. I like being healthy. I like my family. Chances of rolling some thing better from my point of view would be extremely small.
 
terrisus said:
Let's say you're doing better than 95% of the world.
Then:



Basically, it's the same exact thing as the India situation, just adjusting 14% to 5%
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I guess I was going off of median income in the United States for a single person. Which is around about what 28k? I guess if I go off nothing but that global rich list, that would put you in the 1.4% of the world? I'm not so great at math, but I imagine your odds are less in your favor.

So I guess I was being too presumptuous and your post was accurate to what I asked.
Also your post was a bit too technical for me to understand easily unfortunately.
 
Are you fucking nuts?

Not even doing the math, I'm most likely getting stuck in some starving village in Africa or in some slum in India.

I'm a white middle class male, I already won the magical dice roll.
 
Moppet13 said:
I guess I was going off of median income in the United States for a single person. Which is around about what 28k? I guess if I go off nothing but that global rich list, that would put you in the 1.4% of the world? I'm not so great at math, but I imagine your odds are less in your favor.

So I guess I was being too presumptuous and your post was accurate to what I asked.
Also your post was a bit too technical for me to understand easily unfortunately.
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Well, that was a more detailed explanation that people could actually test, of previous explanations I gave.

Basically, the deal is
1-(1-Whatever percentile you're in)^25 = Your chance to improve lot

So, yeah, if you're 1.4%, then your chance to improve your lot is only 29.7%, which would be a bad bed.

But, it's over 50% for anything where one isn't in the top 2.7% of the world



TheLostBigBoss said:
Are you fucking nuts?

Not even doing the math, I'm most likely getting stuck in some starving village in Africa or in some slum in India.
Click to expand...

...
Maybe you should do the math.
 
terrisus said:
...
Maybe you should do the math.
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Going off what you done, I'm still going to have at least a 50% to land somewhere that is worse off, based off income if I'm above 2.7%, which is around $22,000 a year.

Going based off geological location alone, population wise, I'm going to have a statistically high chance of ending up in either Asia, Africa or South America. And yes, those places aren't shit holes and I'm painting a very broad stroke, I would rather not live in those areas and would consider my situation improving if I were to stay in the States, in a decent one that is, or Western Europe.

But, disregarding geolocation, I'm going to school and planning on having a decent salary to the point where I'm around that 1.4% tile where hedging a bet where I only have a 30% chance of improving my current situation. And like I said, that's only based on money and has no out siding factors like location, family, friends, job, or climate.

I'm not taking that bet, not even 25 times.

Ok I was being a tad extreme with my post.
 
TheLostBigBoss said:
I'm going to school and planning on having a decent salary to the point where I'm around that 1.4% tile where hedging a bet where I only have a 30% chance of improving my current situation. And like I said, that's only based on money and has no out siding factors like location, family, friends, job, or climate.

I'm not taking that bet, not even 25 times.
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Sure, that's completely legitimate.


This, however:

TheLostBigBoss said:
Are you fucking nuts?

Not even doing the math, I'm most likely getting stuck in some starving village in Africa or in some slum in India.
Click to expand...

Is not true.
 
This sounds like a fun estimation problem. Let's say your criteria for an acceptable roll are:

1. Under 35 years old
2. Good health
3. Western Civilization
4. At least as wealthy as current condition

The first 3 are relatively easy to get reasonable estimates on:

1. In the US, about 45% of the population is under 35. I'll assume its about the same in other western societies.
2. According to CDC polling in 2012, 74% of Americans under the age of 44 report excellent or very good health. Even though this has personal bias I'll trust it for now.
3. For the estimate for where you spawn in the world I've used the population of the US and Europe / the population of the world: 13%

This leaves only the estimate for wealth:

Lets say you want to be in a household with > 100k total income (middle class or better). Odds in the US: 22%

Combine all of these metrics:

45% * 74% * 13% * 22% = 0.95%

So with these conditions you have about a 1% chance of getting what you want. I think this is still very generously estimated.

With 25 rolls its not a good bet. This is even discounting that everyone has their own demons and problems. Odds of getting someone whose life isn't more than just superficially better than yours is abysmal.
 
jchap said:
[Limitations]
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Well, that's being pretty darn picky there.

In particular, this is pretty funny:

Lets say you want to be in a household with > 100k total income (middle class or better). Odds in the US: 22%
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I mean, one could narrow it down by "good-looking" or "has an attractive spouse" as well.


To each their own, of course.
And, if one's life is so good that they need a $100,000 income to make a re-roll worthwhile, then, yeah, a re-roll probably isn't worthwhile.

But, heck, a re-roll of a $30,000 annual income would be a huge upgrade for me.
 
I already live in America, chances are I roll China, India, Indonesia or some other country that doesn't interest me to live in.
 
Shyamalan twist: you already did. :P

Seriously though, I wouldn't do it. Sure there are elements of my life I would consider changing if given the option, but all-in-all, I'm incredibly fortunate and happy to have the life that I do.
 
I wouldn't trade my wife and children for all the money and fame in the world.

So, not a chance. :)

AIHyF8R.jpg
 
mephel said:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.



I think I'm gonna pass :p
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That's what I was thinking. The majority of humanity lives in poverty. This is something we all tend to forget but if you're living in an industrialized country and have enough money to own a PC and post on message boards, you're among the 5-10% most fortunate on the planet.

I wouldn't change thank you.

Now if the question was if you can switch with somebody else in an industrialized country, then that would be different. I've had personal problems and health related problems my whole life so I wouldn't mind taking a chance. Then again, no longer being the person I am now wouldn't feel right. On second thought I think I'd pass.
 
clem84 said:
That's what I was thinking. The majority of humanity lives in poverty. This is something we all tend to forget but if you're living in an industrialized country and have enough money to own a PC and post on message boards, you're among the 5-10% most fortunate on the planet.
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It hasn't been "forgotten," it's been discussed in great detail numerous times throughout this thread that, pretty much, unless you're in the top 2%, going through 25 chances is more likely to upgrade you than not.
 
SliceSabre said:
Nope.

My life isn't the greatest but a literally billions of other people have a worst life than me. The chances are simply too high I'll have a crappier life and the chances too small I'll have a better one.
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.

In addition, my life may not be perfect, but I've come to terms with it. I love being me. My life is like a project that's starting to come together in some ways. I wouldn't want to leave it, as it is right now, for some random person's life which may be far shittier.

synchronicity said:
Shyamalan twist: you already did. :P
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Stealing movie idea.


EDIT: If someone takes the premise for a movie from a NeoGAF post, and Malka owns every NeoGAF post, would the person be legally required to pay Malka royalties?
 
Yeah, I've gambled far worse things that could have drastically altered my life- and that was without magic dice.
 
For most of us this is similar to winning a second prize of $100,000 in the lottery and then asking if we want to trade that for 25 lottery tickets.
 
Let's see: I'm currently unemployed, lost a lot of material things and facing a legal situation that could have a bad outcome. And, with all that I still say no. I can do a Google search right now and find many, many people in a worse situation than me.

Matter fact, whenever I see those St. Jude commercials come on tv I realize that life is not fair, along with so many people suffering world-wide.
 
Rockyrock said:
This sounds like one of those feel good movies where the protagonist wakes up at the end and suddenly cherishes everything they took for granted.
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that would definitely be the ending! or they got 1 extra secret roll that took them back, some bs.
No way could it end with being a rice picker or something.

What if you roll and become one of your parents? who is you? them? pretty sure that was a film already
 
definitely not. my life isn't perfect, but i have an informed enough world view to know that i won the lottery so to speak by being born as who and where i am.
 
JK-Money said:
I actually watched a documentary that the majority of people in third world countries though they barely make any money, have really bad housing or non at all, and only have one pair of cloths have a higher level of hapiness than the majority of people in first world countries.
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I can see that, as long as basic human needs of food, shelter and clothing are met. No life is perfect and every set of circumstances comes with their own set of problems. Sometimes we assume that wealth is an automatic ticket to happiness, but that simply isn't the case. Wealth is a ticket to comfort, but comfort and ease aren't necessarily correlated with happiness.

Still, given the choice, I'd rather have sufficient means. But I think wealth can be, for some, a source of misery, sooner or later.
 
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