It was my lame attempt at making a verb out of the Petersburg Paradox, where a calculation of Expected Value of the type I play a coin-tossing game where if I get heads, the pot doubles, if I had tails, I lose everything. The EV is infinite, but in real life, you’ll end up ruined pretty quick. SBF had a talk about this with Tyler Cowen and clearly enjoyed biting the bullet:
COWEN: Okay, but let’s say there’s a game: 51 percent, you double the Earth out somewhere else; 49 percent, it all disappears. Would you play that game? And would you keep on playing that, double or nothing? BANKMAN-FRIED: With one caveat. Let me give the caveat first, just to be a party pooper, which is, I’m assuming these are noninteracting universes. Is that right? Because to the extent they’re in the same universe, then maybe duplicating doesn’t actually double the value because maybe they would have colonized the other one anyway, eventually. COWEN: But holding all that constant, you’re actually getting two Earths, but you’re risking a 49 percent chance of it all disappearing. BANKMAN-FRIED: Again, I feel compelled to say caveats here, like, “How do you really know that’s what’s happening?” Blah, blah, blah, whatever. But that aside, take the pure hypothetical. COWEN: Then you keep on playing the game. So, what’s the chance we’re left with anything? Don’t I just St. Petersburg paradox you into nonexistence? BANKMAN-FRIED: Well, not necessarily. Maybe you St. Petersburg paradox into an enormously valuable existence. That’s the other option.
I am rather assuming SBF was a radical, no holds barred, naive Utilitarian who just thought he was smart enough to not get caught with (from his pov) minor infringement of arbitrary rules and norms of the masses and that the risk was just worth it.
It was my lame attempt at making a verb out of the Petersburg Paradox, where a calculation of Expected Value of the type I play a coin-tossing game where if I get heads, the pot doubles, if I had tails, I lose everything. The EV is infinite, but in real life, you’ll end up ruined pretty quick. SBF had a talk about this with Tyler Cowen and clearly enjoyed biting the bullet:
I am rather assuming SBF was a radical, no holds barred, naive Utilitarian who just thought he was smart enough to not get caught with (from his pov) minor infringement of arbitrary rules and norms of the masses and that the risk was just worth it.
I suppose you could say he petered out