Well my life is already good, good enough to the point that an extra $100,000 doesn't make that big of a difference. I wouldn't go with either option. If I had to choose, I'd just go with the $150,000 anyways. Don't really care about being billionaire, just enjoy life.
An 85% chance to get 1 billion? That's pretty good. Think about it as Kobe or Chris Paul making a free throw. Would you bet your life on them making 1 free throw? I would. Let's say if my life were miserable, I'm racking up tons of student debt and I'm working my ass off just to make ends meet. In that case, I'd easily go with Option B. 85% is a great chance. And if I somehow don't win and go to prison, I would just commit suicide. Simple.
Very tough choice. 85% is a HUGE chance, but losing and going to prison for life is too big of a risk. I think I'd play it safe and go with the no risk 150K. It would be a tougher decision though if I was actually given this choice with 1 billions dollars in front of me.
I disagree. 85% is enough for me to take the risk. 150k would be nice but Id have to roll the dice. I can do a lot of good for a lot of people with 1 billion dollars.
I view it as this:
Option A:
100% chance at happiness
Option B:
85% chance at extreme happiness
15% chance at extremely miserable
EV1 = 1.0 * 150,000 = $150K
EV2 = (0.85 * 1,000,000,000) - (0.15 * X) where X will be my quantified cost of going to prison. If that's higher than $5.665 billion, I take option #1. I probably won't earn $5 billion over my lifetime, so the opportunity cost of going to prison is probably a lot less than that.
Type things, so I'd normally go with option #2.
But life in prison? F.uck that.
I'll go with #1. $150,000 is cool anyway.
If I went to a bank and they gave me a cd with some really good interest I could make like $10,000 a year JUST off of that interest.
In 5 years, that's $50,000.
Obviously it'd take a while but then you can start making some serious investments to set yourself up for life so you wouldn't have to work and you won't be a billionaire but shit, you don't have to be to live life at a very high comfort level
... I don't know where you live, but I can assure you that you won't be getting anywhere near that rate with a CD. CD rates are HORRIBLE right now.
Re: Would you rather...
