[extropy-chat] Re: monty hall paradox again: reds and green gorfs

David Lubkin extropy at unreasonable.com
Sat May 22 18:16:35 UTC 2004


It's interesting to see how, even after all the postings on this thread, 
people still come up with new angles.

My contribution -- if other people have an unsupported preference for red, 
or a supported preference based on factors that do not apply to me, I may 
rationally prefer either red or green.

Green might be preferable because there's less competition for green. Or 
because I feel special and independent for spurning the trend.

Red might be preferable to me because if other people prefer red, it is 
more fungible than green. And if the preference persists, the resale value 
could well rise.

Also, the continued demand may lead to the availability of an on-going 
supply and support infrastructure. For some goods, once an initial choice 
has been made, there are on-going supply or repair needs, or other choices 
that necessarily follow the choice.

As I write this, I realize that there's a long list of other practical 
justifications welling to be written, almost all on the red side. 
Basically, society provides rational benefits to conformance on a wide 
range of issues.

Spike wrote:

>A googleplex was once equal to google^2, so even 10^200 googleplexeths 
>still wont buy you a good cup of java.

A googolplex is not googol^2; it's 10^googol. Amusingly, this discrepancy 
may be far away the greatest finite numeric error ever posted on this, or 
any, list. Congrats, Spike! Even in error you distinguish yourself... :-)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Googolplex.html
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=googolplex


-- David Lubkin.





More information about the extropy-chat mailing list