Nate Silver: belief

Transcript context

…What’s your model of his risk-taking behavior? Like interviews with you. I think he is quite insane, irresponsible and insane, but I think he was very literal about being willing to take the St. Petersburg paradox bet, where if he could improve his version of utility by 2.00001x, he would literally say, “Hey, I’m a strict utilitarian. I’m willing to take that gamble.” In his interviews with me, he was almost proud of the high risk of ruin that he was taking. He would say things like, “If you’re not willing to actually, literally ruin yourself, where you’re literally a laughingstock, then you’re doing something wrong.” Is asking whether he might have been a sociopath a substitute for a risk analysis of his behavior, or is it a way of getting at the proper risk analysis of his behavior?…

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