Posts by Danielle
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Brickley, it's not as if gambling addiction isn't a real and serious problem, but so is alcoholism, and yet most people are able to have a glass of wine with their dinner.
Basically, people do irrational things sometimes. They do those things because they're fun, or they're entertaining, or because they're avoiding doing something else, or because that particular thing makes them feel better. They do irrational things for an array of reasons. None of us is immune from acting irrationally. So if you're in a dairy on the verge of tears about someone buying some Instant Kiwis, you could perhaps think about (for example) that time you slept with a total asshole because you were drunk, and not be quite so... Women's Christian Temperance Union-ish about the whole thing.
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discussing what he was going to do with the $36m.
And maybe that fun daydream is worth 20 bucks of entertainment to someone? That's about the cost of a movie nowadays. Just a thought.
A lot of people don't, and buy the ticket anyway, for the exact same reason you've outlined, and with somewhat less understanding of the statistical realities.
I dunno. I've heard plenty of people say variants of 'I've got practically no chance, but what the hell!' about buying Lotto tickets. Isn't that a fairly thorough understanding of what the statistical realities are?
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Um, the 'you silly rubes don't understand maths' thing we're going for here is kind of patronising...
I, for example, am not statistically illiterate or an idiot - I hope - yet I bought my once-yearly Lotto ticket yesterday. I mean, that's a shitload of money! The universe's most miniscule chance at it is still a bigger chance than I'd get by, like, working for 30 years at my job. (Unless I worked at Enron fifteen years ago, perhaps. Or was the corrupt dictator of a mineral-rich country. Or something.)
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Yes, but what's the percentage of 'normal people' on PAS?
I believe it's a party of one: just James Bremner, right?
(Regarding my lack of PE prowess: if feminism was a sport, I would *waste* you, Kyle. ;) )
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Could we perhaps insult Rankin without resorting to the gendered insults?
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I once read a PhD thesis acknowledgements page which thanked 'my drug dealer and the Rolling Stones'.
(Sort of irrelevant, but I love trotting out that anecdote.)
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It's easy to dismiss talkback radio as the insane ravings of hyped morons. Which it is.
On Saturday, I watched the unjustly buried Mike Judge satire from a couple of years ago, Idiocracy . It was pretty scathing stuff. I like to think that we aren't getting stupider, and that 'things were ever thus'. But sometimes I wonder.
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We did, but first we walked on the grass and took our shoes off.
Do they not have those satanically evil fire-ants in Washington?
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Ah, too late. I knew that damn Sonic Youth answer, too. It came up from the depths of my brain all unbidden-like, which is very rare.
You don't happen to have two free tickets to the Ghostface Killah show tomorrow night, do you Russell? :)
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Knuckles The Malevolent Nun
Whoa! Flashback. :)