Vegas Free-for-All - The Only Way to Win and the Unclimbable Mountain

The Only Way to Win and the Unclimbable Mountain

FrankKneeland

Oct 15, 2011
6:02am

So what you're saying is Vroomfondelian philosophy is catching on , "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"”
? Douglas Adams

I think it is deeper than that. I'm leaning towards thinking that what we are seeing is different symptoms of the same root cause. Think about it: If one's beliefs about gambling were askew (due to cognitive distortion), would not one have to assign their own meanings to words, which arguably they did not really understand.

What we may have unwittingly stumbled upon is an easy way to diagnose cognitive distortion. Ask people to give you the dictionary definition of a word, but allow them no access to a dictionary, and see how close they come.

snidely333

Oct 15, 2011
6:12am

Block User

Words often take on colloquial meanings.

FrankKneeland

Oct 15, 2011
7:12am

Block User

Side track.

The scientific research into behavior says that positive reinforcement is far more effective than negative. Ask any air-force flight instructor and they will tell you categorically that the research doesn't apply to their profession!!! Every time they have complimented a trainee for doing anything good they get worse...and conversely if they bitch them out for an error, they get better. If you then apply the scientific method to these claims you will indeed find that what they have observed is correct.

Conclusions?

Does behavior science not work in flight training?

FrankKneeland

Oct 15, 2011
12:59pm

Block User

What no takers for this question? The answer is really interesting!

BobOrme

Oct 15, 2011
1:43pm

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Quote

Originally posted by: FrankKneeland
I was going over old threads to see if there had been any comments and this stood out.

BobOrme said, "I know how to maximize my chances of getting lucky."

By definition "luck" is a chance event over which we have NO control. How then is it possible to maximize any aspect of it?

This is obviously some different definition of the word. If you have any control over an outcome then it isn't luck. If you can change, influence or in any way alter an outcome then luck is not to blame.

It might interest you all to know I did an informal survey a few years ago when I was writing my book and asked random people what their definition of "luck" was, and after asking 30 people I got about 9 distinct definitions, none of which matched the dictionary. It is perhaps ironic that "luck" has therefore lost its meaning in a morass of "ambiguity" (a word which has only one clearly agreed upon meaning).

~FK

If I get dealt Ad Kd Qd Jd 5d and I keep everything except the 5 to draw for a royal instead of holding all five cards for a made flush, I'm maximizing my chances of getting lucky....or, luckier.

FrankKneeland

Oct 15, 2011
2:14pm

Block User

Quote

Originally posted by: BobOrme
If I get dealt Ad Kd Qd Jd 5d and I keep everything except the 5 to draw for a royal instead of holding all five cards for a made flush, I'm maximizing my chances of getting lucky....or, luckier.

What you seem to be describing here is playing by correct strategy. That has a skill component.

I have never understood why people consider hitting jackpots lucky. It is one of the possible outcomes of playing VP and nothing special. It's about as surprising as getting your paycheck on Friday after a week of work.

If I bought a used car in a junk yard for parts and it had $20,000 in the trunk I would consider that lucky. Because it is an unexpected chance event over which I had no control.

As I said before, you use the word very differently.

Now, if you manage to hit a Royal Flush without playing a game where a Royal Flush is one of the expected possible outcomes, that would be lucky indeed.

FrankKneeland

Oct 15, 2011
2:17pm

Block User

Repost of psych question: I'm really curious to see if anyone gets this right.

The scientific research into behavior says that positive reinforcement is far more effective than negative. Ask any air-force flight instructor and they will tell you categorically that the research doesn't apply to their profession!!! Every time they have complimented a trainee for doing anything good they get worse...and conversely if they bitch them out for an error, they get better. If you then apply the scientific method to these claims you will indeed find that what they have observed is correct.

Conclusions?

Does behavior science not work in flight training?

And is negative reinforcement better for this particular profession (as the instructors seem to feel)?

chefantwon

Oct 16, 2011
12:01pm

Block User

Quote

Originally posted by: FrankKneeland

Quote
Originally posted by: billryan

I believe you mean 400 people clicked this on. I highly doubt a tenth of them got past the first paragraph.

Yes, well you don't have to look much further than our national pastime of watching men play with balls, whilst ignoring major developments in science to know that the American public's priorities are somewhat askew.

On January 14, 2005 I came into work at the New York casino and asked a coworker, "Did we make it?" They replied, "yeah I think we won by six points." The reason this is funny (sad) is because I was asking if the Huygens Probe had successfully landed on Titian, and instead got a local sports score. I moved on to ask another seven of my coworkers the same question. Four of them knew the local game score, but none of them even knew what the Huygens Probe was. Apparently, if given a choice between grown men playing with balls, and a first in the history of the human race (landing on the moon of an outer planet), ball handling skills are more interesting to the American public.

It's the kind of thing that if I think about it too long, makes me lose all hope for the human race.

I have not watched another ball related sporting event since, as my own personal form of conscientious objection. I'm sorry, when a person can make more money catching, hitting, or bouncing balls than they can as a medical researcher or scientists working on things that could save our race or planet, it goes well beyond being wrong, and deep into the realm of morally reprehensible.

Whoops...guess I went off on a rant there. Oh well, it's been a rough day.

~FK

Frank, it depends upon where you ask that question. If you asked that question at JPL, you would get a far different set of answers than with normal folks.

For the dollar question, the dollars are everywhere and it doesn't take much to be a member if you know the right people. Although the dollars do come and go from time to time, they tend to stay by themselves.....

MoneyLA

Oct 16, 2011
2:31pm

Block User

Frank there is no positive reinforcement in college or high school sports either. I never got a pat on the back for scoring free throws. But if I missed one in a game I had to run a mile after the next practice.

FrankKneeland

Oct 16, 2011
3:39pm

Block User

Quote

Originally posted by: MoneyLA
Frank there is no positive reinforcement in college or high school sports either. I never got a pat on the back for scoring free throws. But if I missed one in a game I had to run a mile after the next practice.

Yes, but the question is why doesn't positive reinforcement seem to work in flight training, and shouting at people does?

~FK

P.S. Someone asked me this at a party and I got it off the top of my head, while drinking. Come on guys it's not that hard. Oh, and it's related to the most common cognitive bias that affects gamblers.

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