Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by _mitterpach 162 days ago
Couldn’t the dreaming be done even without betting? This feels like an excuse to me to be completely honest.

I’ve personally had thoughts about what I would do if I were millionaire, and given the amount of stories of people coming into a large sums of money and their life getting significantly worse, I’d prefer to actually not win it.
1 comments
happymellon 162 days ago
> Couldn’t the dreaming be done even without betting?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Presumably its easier to dream when there is an unpredictable outcome, rather than knowing you have to wake up tomorrow to spend the day driving around and pissing in bottles. An outside force that could change circumstances is a better feeling than knowing that really isn't any way of changing your career when you can't go to school because you can't afford it.

link
latexr 162 days ago
That law, as per its name, applies to headlines in publications, not literally every question. Otherwise the answer to everything would be “no”.

> Presumably its easier to dream when there is an unpredictable outcome

Anecdotally, I know almost no one who plays the lottery, but almost everyone at some point has shared an “if I won the lottery” dream. Playing isn’t a prerequisite. It’s not too different from dreaming of becoming a rockstar when you can’t even play an instrument. Most of us have some version of that, no money necessary.

link