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  3. Lotteries are a regressive tax on those who can’ t do math, runs the famous old saying. "Nonsense!" retort critics. "For a dolla

Lotteries are a regressive tax on those who can’ t do math, runs the famous old saying. "Nonsense!" retort critics. "For a dolla

admin2015-09-30  91
问题     Lotteries are a regressive tax on those who can’ t do math, runs the famous old saying. "Nonsense!" retort critics. "For a dollar, one can purchase the fantasy of being wealthy beyond dreams of avarice. It is cheap at the price. "
    Over at Overcoming Bias, Eliezer Yudkowsky says "But isn’t that a waste of hope?" But consider exactly what this implies. It would mean that you’re occupying your valuable brain with a fantasy whose real probability is nearly zero a tiny line of likelihood which you, yourself, can do nothing to realize. The lottery balls will decide your future. The fantasy is of wealth that arrives without effort without conscientiousness, learning, charisma, or even patience.
    Which makes the lottery another kind of sink: a sink of emotional energy. It encourages people to invest their dreams, their hopes for a better future, into an infinitesimal probability. If not for the lottery, maybe they would fantasize about going to technical school, or opening their own business, or getting a promotion at work—things they might be able to actually do, hopes that would make them want to become stronger. Their dreaming brains might, in the 20th visualization of the pleasant fantasy, notice a way to really do it. Isn’t that what dreams and brains are for? But how can such reality-limited fare compete with the artificially sweetened prospect of instant wealth not after herding a dot com startup through to IPO, but on Tuesday?
    Seriously, why can’t we just say that buying lottery tickets is stupid? Human beings are stupid, from time to time - it shouldn’t be so surprising a hypothesis.
    Unsurprisingly, the human brain doesn’t do 64-bit floating point arithmetic, and it can’t devalue the emotional force of a pleasant anticipation by a factor of 0. 00000001 without dropping the line of reasoning entirely. Unsurprisingly, many people don’t realize that a numerical calculation of expected utility ought to override or replace their imprecise financial instincts, and instead treat the calculation as merely one argument to be balanced against their pleasant anticipations an emotionally weak argument, since it’s made up of mere squiggles on paper, instead of visions of fabulous wealth.
    This seems sufficient to explain the popularity of lotteries. Why do so many arguers feel impelled to defend this classic form of self-destruction?
    This seems rather extreme. The human brain is wired to feel many irrational desires, like love, and the yearning to produce a squalling mess of an infant that will hoover up all your available cash, plus 10%, for the foreseeable future. We don’t try to edit those out. Given that the human being is irrationally unable to discount a potential pleasure down by the exact expected probability, shouldn’t we exploit this trait in order to cheaply produce large utility gains?
By referring to "herding a dot-com startup through to IPO", the author intends to show that______.
选项 A、no wealth can arrive without persevering, and conscientious effort
B、lottery is something worth trying for anyone who dreams to be wealthy
C、the pleasant fantasy can never compete with the prospect of instant wealth
D、the fantasy of things with real probability is less desirable than that of instant wealth
答案A
解析 根据第二段最后一句“The fantasy is of wealth that arrives without effort--withoutconscientiousness，learning，charisma，or even patience”和第三段，A应为答案。
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