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Utopia Talk / Politics / UK people are poor and dumb
Sam Adams
rank
Fri Jul 24 23:43:23
Especially the women.

https://x.com/YouGov/status/2080286628711391377?s=20

When given the choice between being given 50k pounds and a 50/50 chance at 1M pounds, Brits overwhelming chose the 50k.

Habebe
rank
Sat Jul 25 00:34:59
Ive been whatching alot of podcasts about human behavioral psychology and how it relates to marketing.

And optimizing for not shit, is what they are doing.

Its a big reason people buy name brands or eat at McDonalds.

They are not optimizing for the best product, but gicing them the best chanve that they will not gwt shit, in this case.its no money.
Sam Adams
rank
Sat Jul 25 00:49:07
Sure there's a time and place for that.

But with a 10 to 1 difference in expected value... This isn't that time.

The only reason to choose the 50k is if your desperately poor and 50k is a life changer.
jergul
rank
Sat Jul 25 01:15:48
They are optimizing for "life changing". Completely rational to profit take and exit. Investors do it all the time.
jergul
rank
Sat Jul 25 01:18:49
There was a smart comment there. Somebody would sell their coin-toss to the highest bidder over 400k
jergul
rank
Sat Jul 25 01:28:26
The actual breakdown at 80& is like so.

A person would get 140k on average compared to 500k if everyone took the coinflip. As a group, it is a pretty solid strategy. Minimizing risk individually for a decent pay-out overall.
jergul
rank
Sat Jul 25 01:35:40
Hedging strategies are by no means straightforward and the question here is a hedging choice dilemma.
Seb
rank
Sat Jul 25 03:08:03
Jergul:

50k isn't likely to be life-changing though. It would let someone on a median salary live like someone in the top 10% for a year, or increase their median lifetime earnings by - I would guess - a few %.

By contrast £1m would be life changing. The interest yield would be around 50k every year.

It seems more like extreme risk aversion and probably tells you more about sentiment.
Seb
rank
Sat Jul 25 03:14:59
Actually, not risk aversion, loss aversion was what I was looking for.
Seb
rank
Sat Jul 25 03:16:57
I suspect the effect would be even stronger if you framed it as "would you buy a £50,000 ticket for a lottery with a 50% chance of winning £1m".

Interesting to see what the results of other countries are.
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