Would you rather have 100% of receiving $1m or 50% chance of receiving one billion?

BrightFlashLight said:


That's your perspective. Putting in luck to get a binary result is pretty much foolish choice for those who need the backings of the 1 million as a safety net. Ideally speaking, you will take the 10Bil. But realistically speaking, no one have 10Bil to spare you or give you as a prize money. 10Bil might put you in the bottom of the Forbes' list or something or a little outside of it. How many Billionaires in this world are there again? You should know that only mega-corporations and wealthy nations can afford such luxuries and no one in their right mind will give you such an option.

Ever heard of the Samsung heir saga? The inheritance tax in South Korea pretty much makes the Samsung Heir fake his father's death and alive status as if it is a schrodinger's cat situation. If he didn't, he will have lost almost all of his inheritance and family wealth to the government and in turn, have to liquidate all of his assets including the shares in his company to pay the tax. The result? He will even lose the chairmanship and even the control of his own company. That's not only taking money away from a person, it is also depriving them of their money-making potential.

So who in their right mind, nations, mega-corporations or wealthy individuals will offer you such a choice in the first place. The second option already sounds like a rigged scam the moment it is offered to you in real life. We have seen millions of prize pool for competition games and achievement rewards but a billion? Never, lest to say 10Bil.

Let me go even further for you. It is called the time value of money. 1 million now and 1 million in 20-40 years is a huge difference. Having 1 million now pretty much means you can put that money to earn more right away. 20-40 years is a long time and anything terrible can happen to you in the mean time. No matter which industries you are from, if your health fails, you can't work either way. There is also no guarantee you will make it to higher positions in life either even if you have top notch skills, experiences and knowledge. High paying fields matter little as those numbers are for mid to high positions in those fields mostly when you see their estimate of what you can earn. Every nation have a difference in their paying capacities in each industries. Don't expect the same thing in every place either.
Beside, if you can have a 1 million now and also 1 million in the 20-40 years, then that's double the plan and double the result. The 10Billions option is nothing short of a real gamble, in which you does lose out on the opportunity of a guaranteed 1 million, should you choose the other and fail, which you are most likely going to. Putting in luck to get more money when you can't influence the outcome is nothing short of a foolish attempt. In which case, you do lose resources over time, if you repeatedly attempt such foolish measures. Risk need to be calculated.

I also forgot to mention to you just how hard it is to get into those high career positions in life, that you people so desirable think you can get to, to gather your financial resources. The criteria are so high, it's not even funny. It's as if you are going through a huge scrutinization process that is so complicated, that you wish they make it less complexing for you and a lot of it has little to do with just your technical skills anymore. Should you fail to get there or fail in your high position job, you pretty much also have the same position as everyone else in life, doomed to fail. Because result speaks, and if you fail, your experiences become the point of not meeting expectations and you will have nothing to fall back on in those positions in career. You can talk about process all day, but if it doesn't bring result, it is as good as for naught.

People like to tell you that you can always retry after a failure but in real life, chances don't come a second time often perhaps even never. There are only many first-chances. It is just not your first attempt anymore. The moment you fail, you lose a lot in life and may never recover in life, and it is not just monetary loss I'm talking about. It doesn't matter if the failure is caused by you or other people, you take the loss either way, even more so at higher positions in life. You see why mega-rich people are doing so much to protect themselves but that is none of our problem. Other people are only going to make it worse for you when you are in that position in life. It is part and parcel of life. People are true terrible characters in life. That is a cold-harsh fact.

I said enough about this already.

katsucats said:
You mean this.You basically just wrote a whole rant trying to defeat the hypothetical, which is formally logically irrelevant, or what we might call a denying the antecedent formal fallacy. The question is WHAT IF you were offered the choice. The likelihood of actually being offered the choice is irrelevant. That's as obnoxious as someone asking you, "If we could get pizza or pasta delivered here, right now, what would you like?", and you going on a rant chastising the other person about the physical impossibility of getting instant delivery.

If you're homeless or short on money to make next month's rent payment, then by all means take the million. That is the only reason to take it. Anyone who is stable, meaning middle class or above, should take the billion. It would be sound financial advice if you don't need the million right now.

Realistically, if you're middle class or above, or if you're single and broke but don't owe anything -- in other words, the vast majority of people -- you should take the billion.

There is risk (i.e. of opportunity loss) in every good investment or gamble, but not taking that risk is the biggest risk. Not taking that billion is in fact losing 499 million. If you were at a poker match with pocket Aces goings heads up with $1000 in your bank, assuming you don't need $1000 to make ends meet, you should always plan on going all in. You would have 85% chance of winning $1000. If a person offered you to play poker where you always get pocket Aces, the smart thing to do for nearly everyone in the world, realistically, is to take out their entire bank account, savings account, and max out their credit cards, and then take a loan on everything they have, and play that game.

Opticflash said:


None of what you've stated is a criticism against the $1 bil option.

Firstly the most obvious assumption of the question the OP posed is that the $1 bil can be given with no strings attached. Secondly I was mentioning that if you get a relatively well paying job, it's quite reasonable to gamble. It isn't difficult to work hard and get good grades at school, get a degree in a high paying industry, and get set to earn money. You don't need to be at the top percentile in terms of income; any income bracket that allows you to live with stability should suffice.

There really is no "failure" here, only a missed opportunity to earn $1 bil. If you don't earn the $1 bil, it isn't much of a big deal assuming you are still financially secure, but $1 bil can change your life drastically whereas $1 mil cannot for someone who is financially secure.

BrightFlashLight said:


Yet another non-stop argument from you people. That is your opinion and you are arguing for a certain group of people, just like I am like with mine. With the same argument, I can also say that you are neither denying my choice either. That will be that and I doubt we need to continue further with your barter.