Distinguish pro tanto vs all-things-considered (or “net”) high stakes. The statement is literally true of pro tanto high stakes: the 1% chance of extremely high stakes is by itself, as far as it goes, an expected high stake. But it’s possible that this high stake might be outweighed or cancelled out by other sufficiently high stakes among the remaining probability space (hence the subsequent parenthetical about “unless one inverts the high stakes in a way that cancels out...”).
The general lesson of my post is that saying “there’s a 99% chance there’s nothing to see here” has surprisingly little influence on the overall expected value. You can’t show the expected stakes are low by showing that it’s extremely likely that the actual stakes are low. You have to focus on the higher-stakes portions of probability space, even if small (but non-negligible).
Can you clarify, do you think this statement is true as stated? Or are you saying we should act as though it is true even if it is false?
Distinguish pro tanto vs all-things-considered (or “net”) high stakes. The statement is literally true of pro tanto high stakes: the 1% chance of extremely high stakes is by itself, as far as it goes, an expected high stake. But it’s possible that this high stake might be outweighed or cancelled out by other sufficiently high stakes among the remaining probability space (hence the subsequent parenthetical about “unless one inverts the high stakes in a way that cancels out...”).
The general lesson of my post is that saying “there’s a 99% chance there’s nothing to see here” has surprisingly little influence on the overall expected value. You can’t show the expected stakes are low by showing that it’s extremely likely that the actual stakes are low. You have to focus on the higher-stakes portions of probability space, even if small (but non-negligible).