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• Friday, August 17, 2007 02:08 AM

  Progressive social change is a dangerous form of gambling.

  "In mathematics or statistics, taking a risk based on calculated odds, is known as a bet. The amount you gain by doing so is called a payoff."

  Very true and according to this description every decision you every take in your life is a bet of one form or another since every single decision entails risk. Driving your car to work is a bet that you won't get into an accident. There is no part of life that does not involve risk, however miniscule. And all those people in the real economy are also betting. When Intel makes a processor it is betting that its processor will be be bought at a good price by consumers, that its architecture will work etc. When a government decides to spend more on education it is betting that its expenditure will have a positive impact on student learning and it is betting on the importance of education. Social movements and social changes like feminism, gay marriage, nazism, communism can all be considered big bets that entailed enormous risk. In fact all progressive social change entails enormous risk and is therefore just a big bet. And since betting is the basis of probability and probability is the basis of science, all of our science is also a form of betting. In this case we are betting that a particular theory will be correct given evidence we have seen to date. In fact this is the exact Bayesian interpretation of plausible reasoning. All of our belief formulation is also a form of betting. So since all life is betting why is is so bad if you bet for money? And losing money is not the end of the world. On the other hand communism resulted in the deaths of 100 million people. So maybe progressive social change is the most dangerous form of gambling!

  —bungimail Read bungimail's other letters
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