Sounds easy enough - but think of the hassle setting up webcams etc so you know there is no cheating with someone using Deep Blue Connect Four Pro 1.2 or something.

I offer to bet $200 as follows:

I pay you $200 by September 17, 2017 if you do all of the following and promptly provide proof at each step of the way:

--Register for the SAT by July 28, 2017.
--Take the August 26, 2017 SAT.
--Receive on or about September 15, 2017 a score of 800 on the math section of that SAT.

You pay me $200 by September 17, 2017 if you fail to complete timely the above set of tasks.

Settlement via Paypal.

I have never welched on a bet.

This offer expires 48 hours from the timestamp on this post or when I revoke it, whichever happens first.

Wish this gif was longer and you could see more of the other guys face.

Offer extended to David Sklansky as well. Identical terms.

boooked

didn't say "booked" :-P

I'm pretty confident I wouldn't get an 800 on the math SAT, tbh.

Zork,

Some interpretations of your post #57 would cost you $200,000 fyi.

LOL. Unless you think your audience is high school students who are planning on taking the SAT in August anyway or a bunch of poors, no one in their right mind will take this idiotic offer.

Let's say the test costs about $50 to register for and all time involved, registering, getting to and from testing site, taking the test is 4-5 hrs. You're looking at about $30-$40/hr. And that's the absolutely best case scenario. I assuming zero time spent in prep to even look at what the test is like today and how it differs from when one took it in the past.

Do you seriously think someone that can do this doesn't value their time at significantly more than that?

The 48hr expiration is a nice touch. As if someone is going to see this 3 days later and regret that they missed the deadline.

I suppose this could have been a really poorly executed troll, but I doubt it.


Here's my counter offer to you. If you meet the terms you set in your post yourself, I will pay you $200. If you fail, you pay me nothing. Complete freeroll. Please, take my money.

Of course, no such offer is complete without the standard 48hr time limit to book. If you really want to take this let me know and we'll figure out a way to confirm your identity prior to testing so you can't just pay a random $100 for his score report and pretend that it's yours.

I don't know anything about tilteddonkey, but that seems like a good bet for Zorkman at evens just due to volatility.

I understand top 1% say get an 800, but I don't have a feel for what percentile you need to be in to have more than a 50% chance of an 800 on a given day.

I scored a perfect on my PSAT and SAT, and I had many (smart) friends who also ace'd the math section of the SAT. If one of the questions is easy, they all are.

Top 1% of *high school students*.

David says you have to insult him first

holy **** did Wil reneg on that bet???

I will decline this.

I'm not too sure what my probability of scoring an 800 would be if I did this, although I'm fairly confident 25% < probability < 75%. Every question would be a question I should get correct, but there is always the possibility of making dumb mistakes, and there are a lot of questions (FWIW I got 780 on the quantitative section of the SAT when I took it in HS).

However, even if we assume the very high end of that range I think this bet is -EV for me because:

1. We have to discount the fact that any procedural error, or something that comes up on August 26, or any other failure to take the test seems to throw the contest to you. I will estimate this probability at 5%.

2. I would be out the test fee of $45, plus transportation to the test center, so we will say $55 total.

3. I would need to study a little as I believe there is geometry on the test and I forget a lot of it, and I would probably want to brush up on a couple other things if there is any way of getting the probability up to 75%. We'll say this takes 4 hours.

4. I need to spend ~5 hours taking the test (and travelling to it, etc.)

Basically my EV here is (assuming high end of 800 probability range)

= $200*(.75)*(.95) - $200*(1-.75*.95) - $55 - x + (.75)*(.95)*y1 + (1-.75*.95)*y2
= $30 - x + .7125*y1 + .2875*y2

where x = the value of 9 hours of my time
y1 = the utility I get from the satisfaction of knowing I win
y2 = the utility I lose from the embarrassment of knowing I lost

I'm not exactly sure how to value my time, but I've come up with a heuristic and I'll say that 9 hours of it on a day off is worth $200.

So we are at
EV = -$170 + .7125*y1 + .2875*y2

If EV is to be > 0, then .7125*y1 + .2875*y2 > 170.

Unfortunately I do not derive that much pleasure from winning this bet so that inequality is unlikely to hold.

Thanks for reading.

He's kinky like that.

He needs to pay up or ban imo

I'm a math PhD, employed as a teaching stream assistant professor in mathematics, who frequently criticized David (although he has me on ignore). So I qualify. However, I'm not sure whether my vastly higher level of math education is actually superior for low level lmath/logic test like SAT math vs someone who had done a lot of low level math thinking too in their life. Both of us should be decent at simple math. So I'm agnostic on who likely scores better.

But this is the wrong frame entirely. This bet shows exactly the consistent problem with David's thinking. My long standing criticisms of him have nothing to do with LSAT or SAT math ability, but his ridiculous attempts to stuff "logic" (mainly betting analogies) into political/societal problems. It is his misuse and misguided attempts to apply "logic" that is the problem.

Further, a consistent problem with David's thinking is to characterize leadership in society largely based on "intelligence" which is usually just a stand in for "low level math and logic skills". This has been on display in thread after thread. He highly, highly values his own perceived ability in low level math skills is important societal consideration. He is wrong to do so. So while beating him on a low level math skills test might be satisfying, it doesn't fix the errors he is making.

Nailed it.

All true, but no one really cares about trying to fix his errors. David's personal improvement is not really of value to anyone. It just amusing to point out his stupidity. Everyone has their ways, as you do in your post.

Cliffs: wil accused the other guy of cheating, declared himself the winner, threw a tantrum, and refused to pay until he was threatened with a ban.

Skalanksys line of political thinking is probably every other rich Republicans. I'm rich thus I want tax breaks, but I can't justify the vote simply based on that so I try to justify it through other means. It's hard to admit you're a terrible person to yourself.