Boobies and the lottery
post by araneae · 2010-10-09T18:18:49.371Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 16 commentsContents
16 comments
So, in the past I have "donated" boobie pictures to boobiethon, a online fundraising event for breast cancer research. This year I entered into a drawing for a free custom WordPress theme. And I won it!
You might think that I'm lucky, but actually when I enter lotteries I'm very calculating. Once when I was 10, there was a Beanie Baby lottery at the local library. You could see the jars with the tickets in them for each Beanie Baby. There was one Beanie Baby that had very few tickets in the jar, so I bought exactly one ticket for it. And I won the Beanie Baby.
I saw that for this contest, there were 5 WordPress prizes to be awarded total. For other contests there were only one. And I correctly surmised that others would try to win the more desirable prizes. I also submitted 5 pictures of my boobies, and you got one ticket per boobie picture with a maximum of 5 pictures. That's 5 entries. Donating $10 only got you one ticket. And it cost me nothing :).
It's human nature to go for the lottery item of the thing you actually want. I don't do that. I enter the lotteries for things I think no one else wants and that have multiple awards and that have a low-to-no cost. You're never going to win the monetary prize, because the odds are against you. You CAN win things if the odds are in your favor.
16 comments
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comment by katydee · 2010-10-09T20:02:08.330Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
This relates to an interesting idea that I had recently-- namely that if you change your tastes and preferences to like things that other people don't like, especially when it comes to food, you can save a hell of a lot of money.
Replies from: Alicorn, CronoDAScomment by [deleted] · 2010-10-09T18:44:21.068Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Inciting title notwithstanding, I admit I wasn't overly impressed by this idea. The main point of this post seemed to be this:
I enter the lotteries for things I think no one else wants and that have multiple awards and that have a low-to-no cost. You're never going to win the monetary prize, because the odds are against you. You CAN win things if the odds are in your favor.
What you are really doing here is calculating the expected utility of winning the various prizes offered and concluding that the expected utility of a minor prize is greater than that of a larger prize. I don't think anyone on LW would disagree, because this is probably the most straightforward case of what it means to practice instrumental rationality.
Replies from: Cyan, Relsqui, Relsqui↑ comment by Relsqui · 2010-10-09T20:28:54.018Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Actually, what I found striking was this:
It's human nature to go for the lottery item of the thing you actually want. I don't do that.
The expected utility for me of acquiring something I do not want or need is, at most, nothing.
Replies from: Alicorn, None↑ comment by Alicorn · 2010-10-09T21:25:09.008Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Are you folding in "capable of selling for net gain" to your definition of "want"?
Replies from: Relsqui↑ comment by [deleted] · 2010-10-09T20:56:09.007Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I found that phrase to be a bit contradictory--if you don't want something, why go for it? I suspect the answer is that the original poster assigns utility to winning a lottery regardless of the utility of the prize.
Replies from: Relsqui