What a second. That's your point? Don't people do that all the time. Firefighters and police officers to name two pretty clear examples. They take much more than a small risk to help people in dire straits. They consciously pick their profession knowing full well that the risk you describe is part of the choice.

I would base my vote on my impression of that person. If they struck me as dangerous or contagious I obviously would vote against them, even in the non-secret ballot. I don't think this is an undesirable trait as David highlighted earlier. I think it's a reasonable survival mechanism. Someone who votes against a guy just because they don't like something aesthetic about him is obviously a problem. As for the 2% risk of death, I've never been worried when I got it in top set vs lower set on the turn, so I'm not gonna start worrying now.

If I don't even get to know what this person looks like, I'm going to probably vote against them. Reason being I don't want to risk letting someone dangerous or contagious in.

Would more posters from RGP or SMP vote him off the boat?

They are paid extra to take that risk. And even if they weren't they are a small percentage of the population.

They also get all the ladies.

If you can guarantee it will come out of nowhere and be painless, I'd draw against the ace of spades for a random, just don't ask me more than once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iwC...youtu.be&t=128

And just like that i used my one time...

It might be possible to recharge and get one more go at it with quad queens at the flop. It may be less painful.



Imagine poker where you can put the opponent all in for their lives (or force them to save strangers taking random shots of 2% each time) every now and then if you cover them. Puts a new meaning to ICM equity and hero calls.

Maybe that protects your original point. It occurs to me that I am a retired scientist and a volunteer reserve police office. You are a professional gambler. Is it possible that our differing opinions says more about the people we interact with on a daily basis than about the moral fiber of the average person?

i thing the answer is alot of people would and alot of people wouldn't in secret ballot... r u assuming 50%+ for acceptance? or unanimous?

open voting i think good chance everyone would

i think of a similar question: would you take a vow of extreme poverty (whatever that is exactly) to make it so the world doesn't end in 100 years (and will go on for 1,000's of years)???

EDIT: i also think it would matter to a great deal culturally. people who have lived where life has been very hard the last 100 years more apt to say no and also just the general culture. some cultures are happy and helpful, others are not.

Something like this.

It is more that the problem doesn't speak at all to how people behave, or what DS was even trying to imply.

The U.S. population wasn't worried about increased risk of anything when it was mostly against allowing Jewish refugees into the country in the 1930s. It was simply because they didn't like Jews.

Well yeah, everybody ****s on the outgroups. That's how people roll. But when you have an ingroup (or somebody who doesn't look like outgroup) things change. But when your ingroup is degenerates and sociopaths, and you have to **** on them because it's clearly right, then you just reflexively start ****ting on everybody. And if you're DS, you assume everybody else does too.

I've met a lot of very nice people at the casino. #notallpokerplayers

I wouldn't characterize DS as a sociopath.

Years ago when you and I were discussing something similar I pointed to those seven cigarette company CEOs who swore that their product doesn't cause cancer. Thus knowingly refusing to prevent deaths to preserve their stock price. Its the people you interact with that are the rarity.

Well obviously it depends on the detail. All these sort of questions depend on the details and are essentially meaningless without them.

The difference between secret or public ballot will likely relate to peer pressure. People are more likely to vote against the perceived consensus opinion if its a secret poll. So the most 'charismatic' passengers of the lifeboat are going to influence the vote, but more so in a public one.

Feel for probably. Some people have a better grasp of the difference between 2% and 0.02% than others. This could work both ways but adds an extra complication, with bad grasp of mathematics changing some peoples votes.

How obvious is the 2% chance of everyone dying? This I think is crucial. You can know what the probability of dying is in theory, but it has more impact if its obvious immediate and graphic than if its more remote and obscured. Can you see the precipice or is it hidden behind a wall? Actually I think this is going to be the most important factor for most. If the 2% chance to die is clear and immediate I would expect the majority of groups to vote against rescue, but if it requires any form of abstract reasoning to see the chance of everyone dying then I would expect most groups to vote in favour of rescue.

Of course I am assuming no one knows anything about the person who needs rescuing, like sex age etc. Which is unrealistic. A sexual or racially homogeneous lifeboat would be more likely to rescue someone of the opposite sex or same race. The younger the person the more likelihood of rescue. Etc...

It's as trivially easy to find acts of selfishness as those of altruism.

This makes it impossible for anyone to give a concrete answer to some vague hypothetical that detaches itself utterly from real world experience.

The other problem is that the average person doesn't exist. Nobody really has 2.4 children while earning the average global wage. None of them do good things all the time, or only bad things. What language does the average person speak? What's the culture of life boats in the average country? Women and children first?

Claiming certainty about what this mythical average person actually does in a situation that never actually occurs is absurd.

I remember. I also recall that at the time I replied that I have had a lot of interaction with CEO's in my career and I would say in general that the rise to that position does tend to select for a certain moral "flexibility". Not saying that all CEO's lack integrity, just that it may be a bias.

I also remember another thread where you commented that your interactions with gamblers and strippers gave you a somewhat skewed view of average integrity. (Maybe a little harsh on strippers imo but I do not know many strippers so who am I to say). I wish that I could remember the context, but I cannot.

Bad choice of language on my part- should have said "consists of" or "consists of a large percentage of" instead of "is".

It was a needless clarification. You were supposed to realize that you called my ingroup sociopaths AND degenerates giving Brian the opportunity to say I am not a sociopath.

Some reasons to think there is a spirit of goodwill among people:

According to a Gallup poll:
about 84% of Americans donated to charity in past 12 months
about 49% of Americans have volunteered their time for charity in past 12 months

Also, many of the supposedly "selfish" pro poker players have set up special organizations for donating to charity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There you go assuming the worst of everybody again.

That's totally unrelated to the my contention that most people won't take a small chance of serious consequences to keep others from experiencing them.

The closest evidence in support of self-sacrifice I can think of right now are the stories of people who sacrificed themselves during the sinking of the Titantic. History says that the many of the crew and passengers voluntarily stayed on board to save others. Towards the end of the disaster the lifeboats were dangerously overfilled. Its not perfect evidence, but you haven't presented much, if any, to support your contention either.

Have a good holiday.