Nivi › Friends

David Cowan: "Instead of building up to calculus as the epitome of math education, we should instead sequence our lessons so that every high school graduate understands statistics and probability. Calculus is nice for scientists to know, but statistics inform most complex decisions that people have to make both at work and at home. Undoubtedly, Benjamin is right that most people don't understand simple concepts like expected value, which perhaps explains the success of lotteries and casinos." - Nivi from Bookmarklet

I think the people who play lotteries understand that the expected probability of gaining financial independence in the next week is zero if they don't play, and epsilon if they do :) - Private Sanjeev

But if those same people would explore the opportunity cost, they would see that their epsilon could be slightly greater in another investment. but we're human, so we're driven by our short-term emotional satisfaction. - avlok