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.
jergul rank	Sat Jul 25 06:33:43 Most people in the UK are not middle class Seb. Settling credit card debt, getting teeth fixed, having something to contribute to a child's downpayment on a home. But noted that it would have to be a million for it to be lifechanging for you :).
Sam Adams rank	Sat Jul 25 06:54:04 "life changing" 50k isn't remotely life changing. 1 million isn't even life changing, though at least that is a decent bit of free cash. You know how dirt poor you have to be for 50k to be life changing? "Interesting to see what the results of other countries are. " Humans in general are really bad at math so presumably you'd never get it to even evenly distributed but I'd assume there's a bit of correlation with wealth and maybe some correlation with places that see themselves as bold risk takers(looking at you Florida).
jergul rank	Sat Jul 25 08:47:44 Elitist prick much? Do either of you know what a loaf of bread costs in your area? It does not sound like it. 50k is life changing if you rent, if you have unmanageble credit card debt, if you have untreated dental issues, or if you have a child doing any of the above. To name a few things that 50k can fix in a lifechanging way. Just think back to when you both got help from your family to make a downpayment on a home. Did buying a home change your life? Did you get more than 50k?
TheChildren rank	Sat Jul 25 14:49:22 if u doesnt have 10k or 20k, then yea 50k is life changin u dumb shit it lets u get out of da "husstle range" and live ur life stress free some wut sure u aint gonna be jet flyin 2 holidays any time soon but wut is da realistic chance u gettin da 1 mill. zero dats wut they tell u 50/50...in reality it is zero
Seb rank	Sat Jul 25 16:17:59 Jergul: "Most people in the UK are not middle class Seb." Hence I used median household disposable income - about 35-40k - as a baseline. An extra year of disposable income is a lovely windfall. A downpayment for a house would probably be a huge driver, but you'd need to have above median income to finance the mortgage thereafter and there aren't that many people in that trap of being able to afford borrowing, qualifying for lending but not able to get a downpayment (especially as the downpayment as a blocker has been aggressively targeted with policy interventions). I'm skeptical that these alone should give you an 80% preference on what on the face of it is probably not the right choice if you sat down with a financial planner.
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