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by consteval 679 days ago
> If the author was sufficiently confident in their claims

What? No.

I'm very confident in my driving skills. I'm a great defensive driver. But I won't bet on me not getting in a wreck this next year.

Because the real world is complicated and truly anything can happen. That doesn't mean you're right, that means you got lucky.

For example the Simpson's creators aren't clairvoyant geniuses, they just happened to get a lot of stuff right.

1 comments

> But I won't bet on me not getting in a wreck this next year.

You already have, by deciding on a specific level of coverage for your auto insurance policy.

(That aside - really? Either you get into many more accidents than the average person, or you're not extrapolating out into the future. If given the chance to take the same bet at 1:1 odds every year, surely you'd then take it every year until you decided to stop driving for safety reasons?)

I commute 15 hours a week. In Texas.

I see a few accidents a day. Nobody actually wants to drive really, we just do it because we have to. If I could teleport to work or even take a train I'd do it, and I'm not alone in that.

Point is, I don't feel comfortable betting on things where there's a large amount of outside influence. And no, insurance isn't betting. It's risk pooling, not betting.