[nme01]

I see a problem with risking everything that is if your goal is to either make it to the top or make it to the bottom, then risking it all is the way to go. Yet, that’s a poor long-term strategy. Eventually risk will realize and you’ll lose it all.

[kqr]

Your statement sort of assumes the worst case has negative infinity utility. Which, granted, is usually how economists model human behaviour, but perhaps not how humans behave in practise. (If death truly had negative infinity utility, it would overpower the benefit of everything and we couldn't do anything.)

[GuB-42]

I think it is more about the "risk of ruin" than infinities.

Here is the idea: you go in a casino with $1000, that's your self-imposed limit, you will not die if you lose it, but it means you will stop playing, and you will have no way to recover from your losses, time to go home. That's what ruin is.

And this is something you have to take into account. For example, imagine you find a game where you have 50% chance of losing your bet, and 50% of winning your bet +2%. You can bet up to $1000. In theory, you get the best expectancy ($10) if you play $1000, but since it is your limit, you actually have a 50% chance of losing it all with no other chance to play this profitable game again, the result is you can expect to leave the casino poorer. If instead, you start with smaller bets, slowly ramping up as you play, you will be able to take full advantage of the game indefinitely, and almost certainly end up richer.

Note that in a real casino, games have a house edge, so from a pure money perspective, ruin is not a bad thing because it prevents you from playing more negative expectancy games, and it will happen eventually. But since if like me, you just go there to have fun and consider the house edge to be the price of entertainment, then lowering the risk of ruin is actually the main goal.

[kqr]

You are correct. For economic opportunity evaluations, it often superior to treat 0 as having negative infinite utility (e.g. ruin aversion). My comment was about more everyday situations where that is clearly not how people behave.

[MauranKilom]

Obligatory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

[oarabbus_]

>(If death truly had negative infinity utility, it would overpower the benefit of everything and we couldn't do anything.)

It's true death has utility in an economic sense, as one needs not look further than the funeral/death care industry to find utility. But if we are talking about death of the self, the negative infinite utility claim seems more convincing than the non-negative-infinite one. In fact, negative infinite utility might be a near-perfect synonym for death.

And at the risk of sounding overly nihilistic, it may well overpower the benefit of everything/anything, again if we are specifically talking about the self.

[kqr]

I am talking about death of the self.

When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever, because negative infinity times small probability plus positive finite number times large probability is still negative infinity in total.

Essentially, any time you're weighing up your options, and one of the outcomes has negative infinity utility with non-zero probability, then the outcome of that course of action also has negative infinity utility, the way these terms are usually defined.

Thus, given the behaviour of most people, they do not think of their death has having negative infinity utility.

[oarabbus_]

>When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever,

Weighing probabilities is one thing, and assumes humans are capable of rationally weighing these outcomes (which isn't clear) but even then which part of our scientific understanding of death precludes death having negative infinite utility?

Still, this doesn't disprove death as negative infinite utility, as the risk of death also exists from _not_ crossing the street; one isn't preventing the risk of death by refusing to cross the street. In fact, staying permanently in one place, never crossing the street, and doing nothing indefinitely out of a fear of death, would simply guarantee one's death.

>and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility

Extend the timescale and the desirable outcome leads to the same outcome as the "undesirable" one.

[nwatson]

Crossing the street ... is also a study in how rules change. A distractible American(-Brazilian) arriving in the UK will have a few heart-stopping moments when they look left, and on the verge stepping into the street, take that precautionary glance right and realize they did it wrong.

The "West" is possibly on the verge of some large rule changes.

[bryanrasmussen]

at some point the chance of dying not crossing the street and crossing the street are equal.

[ivalm]

True negative infinities, even discounted, are still infinite, so not very useful as it makes all trajectories equal (negatively infinite).

[oarabbus_]

I agree the characterization isn't very useful, as you point out - but that's the tricky thing with infinit(ies), isn't it? When discussing human behavior and introducing an infinity concept, the final result is the same for all people in all cases.

[ivalm]

The obvious answer is that death isn’t a negatively infinite outcome. The fact that people prefer death to living (eg via suicide) is an example thereof.

[elcomet]

It doesn't assume this. That's just the definition of "risking everything". If you loose, then you have nothing left and you are at the bottom.

[renewiltord]

Right, but really risking everything is almost impossible to do. Like if I took my life savings and put them on red, I'm still going to be fine because I'll outrace that loss in no time.

To really risk everything I have to burn bridges, damage my brain, and lose all my money.

In the end, you always have yourself. Except when you die. And then it doesn't matter.

Interestingly, though, I've always stopped for people on the side of the road to render aid and had many fun stories come from it but I almost never do when I have women in the car. I'm not entirely sure why but I don't.

The only exception was years ago on the Road to Hana where it was after dark on the South East side of the island and we came upon a family with a busted tyre. But I think on the mainland, probably not.

So maybe there's more to loss than oneself. I think I'd eat total death myself over harm to those I am responsible for.

[ozim]

When I think about taking alternative cost into account you loose more than "just money", you loose all the opportunities that could show up after a week or month later, or until you build savings back.

You always have yourself but consider also how much impact in psyche it might have, will you really have "yourself" after blowing all the savings? It could trigger regret (especially if some opportunity shows up after savings are gone) and could spiral down into depression. It is easy to say "I am strong, I would handle it" before something bad happens.

[renewiltord]

A fair point. Fortunately, I have tested myself well on this front, both by losing lots of money on leveraged investments and by having multi hundred thousand medical bills and at least my position on money clearly has abundance mentality.

I think the opportunity cost thing is a meaningful thing, but I doubt it'll really hurt since I have significant amounts of money I can draw on through my network.

[elcomet]

Thanks for this interesting perspective!

[FerociousTimes]

Can you tell me please what you mean by "infinity utility" here?

[misja111]

But eventually every one of use will lose it all; we are all mortals. So shouldn't we try to maximize happiness while we are alive? Risking it all could make sense if it leads to lots of happiness if it works out. It reminds me of the saying, 'better to live one year as a lion than ten years as a sheep'

[jstummbillig]

Risking everything every time is most certainly not the way to maximize aggregate happiness.

[xvector]

Is it? Sheep can live pretty chill and content lives. I'd take ten as a sheep over one as a lion.

[adrianN]

If maximizing expected happiness is the goal then aiming for something achievable with low risk, e.g. stable middle class life, is probably a better strategy than risking everything on a moonshot.

[abm53]

Perhaps more realistic is to approximately Kelly-bet your way through life.

[nme01]

Exactly what I had in mind. Just to make my point more understandable: if I own an apartment and I pursue my dream and sell it so that I can invest it in my startup, that’s risking it all. Does such strategy have a positive outcome in the long run (even if by outcome we only mean happiness however it’s measured)? I doubt that.

Bringing down risk taking to a simple “risk it all” is a trivia that is maybe inspiring but naive.

What’s worse, those kinds of strategies are appealing to people mostly because of survivorship bias: one hears inspiring stories from those who risked it all and made it to the top but rarely from those who loosed it all (those don’t sell too well).

[abm53]

That said, I think the point made by others that your non-tangible assets (education, knowledge, personal network) should be included in your capital when considering your bet size is a valid one.

Losing your apartment isn't really an absorbing state if you can still take a salaried job, re-accumulate, and then continue to make further bets.