Dan Smith’s donation drive initially set off to raise $350,000, with $175,000 available for matching. It ultimately ended up raising $1.7 million for highly cost-effective charties and thus likely exceeded anyone’s expectations by far (including our own). Such a turn of events seems very fortunate, but a case can be made that there was more […]
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by Lukas Gloor and Adriano Mannino The previous posts in this series have outlined some of the ways poker benefits people. The first post centered on poker’s economic contributions to society, the second one on a comparison between poker and tennis – both activities that can be done as a hobby or professionally. What has […]
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Dan Colman took some flack over the summer for suggesting that poker might be a dark game. But if poker is dark: How dark? And compared to what? How “dark” are similar industries? After a few weeks of research, it looks like the most similar industry to compare poker to is tennis. The poker economy and the tennis economy are both […]
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Poker is sometimes maligned by opponents for not being a productive pursuit that contributes to society. The argument goes that, if you set aside things like the $5 million raised for charity in this year’s Big One for One Drop, you’re simply left with a bunch of folks playing cards. The argument isn’t really an […]
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This is part III of a series on the importance of rationality and applied rational decision-making (see part I, part II). Why we have biases We have biases because our brain-design dates back to the stone age. Our intuitive decision-making consists of shortcuts, heuristics, that led to successful gene-copying more often than not in our […]
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This is part II of a little series on the importance of rationality and applied rational decision-making (click here for part I). Optimal decision-making Perhaps the misconception that rationality is associated with e.g. robot-like Mr. Spock comes from having unrealistic standards. The normative model of rationality describes ideal decision-making. Humans are far from ideal thinkers, […]
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On December 26th, 1983, the Soviet early-warning system for nuclear attacks reported a missile being launched from the United States. Shortly after, the system reported four more missiles underway. Stanislas Petrov, the sole officer on duty, was confronted with a monumental decision: Should he follow proper procedure and raise alarm, alerting the highest military officials […]
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