Re:
by rauljara on Saturday January 30, 2010 @05:38PM
(#1089413)
I don't believe it's condescending because I include myself among the great number of people who have trouble figuring out my own best interest.
Case in point: gambling. I love to do it. It is astonishingly easy to convince yourself your likelihood of winning is easily 10x, 100x, or in the case of a lottery, 100,000x as likely as it actually is. Humans have a well known tendency to take small probabilities of positive outcome and act as though they are, in fact, quite likely. Even knowing this, I still frequently over estimate the likelihood of good things happening when I play poker. If that tendency right there isn't my own brain being hardwired to have trouble figuring out my own best interest, I don't know what is.
Case in point: gambling. I love to do it. It is astonishingly easy to convince yourself your likelihood of winning is easily 10x, 100x, or in the case of a lottery, 100,000x as likely as it actually is. Humans have a well known tendency to take small probabilities of positive outcome and act as though they are, in fact, quite likely. Even knowing this, I still frequently over estimate the likelihood of good things happening when I play poker. If that tendency right there isn't my own brain being hardwired to have trouble figuring out my own best interest, I don't know what is.