Do I have insurance? Yes, even though I don’t need to have it. Why? Because I didn’t have it and I got sued. But that’s another story. Do you have insurance even though you are not required to? Possibly. Probably. If I don’t have insurance and I get sued, I could lose a lot, I might have to go into bankruptcy. I might end up homeless, living on the streets.
You have no choice about the coin toss. There is only one chance: a single flip of the coin. You cannot say “Wait, let’s go for 2 out of 3 tosses.” There are two possibilities: heads or tails. The amount you gamble is your life: if you win, you live; if you lose, you die.
There are four possibilities in the future.
1. If I think that climate change is not happening or not going to happen, and climate change is not real and I win this gamble in the future, then everything will be fine. There is 1 chance in 4 that this will happen.
2. If I think that climate change is real and I don’t really want to gamble so I take out insurance, and in the future climate change is not real, then everything will be fine and the insurance will not have to be used. There is 1 chance in 4 that this will happen.
3. If I think that climate change is real and I don’t really want to gamble so I take out insurance, and in the future climate change is real, then everything will be terrible and the insurance will have to be used, but I survive. There is 1 chance in 4 that this will happen.
4. If I think that climate change is not real and I do not take out insurance, and in the future climate change is real, then everything will be terrible and the insurance cannot be used, and everything, life as I know it, will change so much that most of the population will die and I will probably be one of those who dies. I gambled and lost, and paid for it with my life. 🙁
There is 1 chance in 4 that this will happen.
There are 3 chances in 4 that you will be living, depending on your choices. There is 1 chance in 4 that you will be dead. It’s your choice.
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Let’s try a different example. The firemen get a call that says there is a brush fire and the fire has two possible outcomes: the brush fire will burn down the forest or the brush fire will die out.
They have two choices: they can go in the fire engine and put out the brush fire, or make sure the fire has burned out. Or they can not go to the fire and take the chance that the fire will burn itself out.
There is 1 chance in 4 that the brush fire will burn the forest down. If the forest burns down and the firemen did not go to the brush fire and try to put it out, there will be hell to pay. Just ask PG&E – they had to pay a lot of money and went bankrupt because they didn’t maintain their power lines and the lines started a huge fire in California.