Scenario: A life insurance salesman, who happens to be a trusted friend of a relatively-new-but-so-far-trustworthy friend of yours, is trying to sell you a life insurance policy. He makes the surprising claim that after 20 years of selling life insurance, none of his clients have died. He seems to want you to think that buying a life insurance policy from him will somehow make you less likely to die.
How do you respond?
edit: to make this question more interesting: you also really don’t want to offend any of the people involved.
He makes the surprising claim that after 20 years of selling life insurance, none of his clients have died.
Wow. He admitted that to you? That seems to be strong evidence that most people refuse to buy life insurance from him. In a whole 20 years he hasn’t sold enough insurance that even one client has died from unavoidable misfortune!
Life insurance salesmen are used to hearing that. If they act offended, it’s a sales act. If you’re reluctant to say it, you’re easily pressured and you’re taking advantage. You say “No”. If they press you, you say, “Please don’t press me further.” That’s all.
Since his sales rate probably increased with time, that means the average time after selling a policy is ~8 years. So the typical client of his didn’t die after 8 years. Making a rough estimate of the age of the client he sells to, which would probably be 30-40, it just means that the typical client has lived to at least 48 or less, which is normal, not special.
Furthermore, people who buy life insurance self-select for being more prudent in general.
So, even ignoring the causal separations you could find, what he’s told you is not very special. Though it separates him from other salesmen, the highest likelihood ratio you should put on this piece of evidence would be something like 1.05 (i.e. ~19 out of 20 salesmen could say the same thing), or not very informative, so you are only justified in making a very slight move toward his hypothesis, even under the most generous assumptions.
You could get a better estimate of his atypicality by asking more about his clients, at which point you would have identified factors that can screen off the factor of him selling a policy.
(Though in my experience, life insurance salesmen aren’t very bright, and a few sentences into that explanation, you’ll get the, “Oh, it’s one of these people” look …)
How’d I do?
Edit: Okay, I think I have to turn in my Bayes card for this one: I just came up with a reason why the hypothesis puts a high probability on the evidence, when in reality the evidence should have a low probability of existing. So it’s more likely he doesn’t have his facts right.
Maybe this is a good case to check the “But but somebody would have noticed” heuristic. If one of his clients died, would he even find out? Would the insurance company tell him? Does he regularly check up on his clients?
The part to feel guilty about is that I chose not to explain that the salesman is probably either lying, or insane, or both, and therefore probably shouldn’t be considered “a trusted friend”. And also that I chose to just try to avoid both of these people, rather than… thinking of a less blatantly unfriendly solution.
I disagree with your analysis, but the details of why I disagree would be spoilers.
But I can only make inferences on what you’ve told me. If there’s a factor that throws off the general inferences you can make from a salesman’s clientele, you can’t fault me for not using it. It’s like you’re trying to say:
“This dude was born in the US. He’s 50 years old. Can he speak English?” → Yeah, probably. → “Haha! No, he can’t! I didn’t tell you he was abducted to Cambodia as an infant and grew up there!”
Anyway, the next step is to estimate what fraction of salesman with the same clientele composition have not had their clients die and see how atypical he is. Plus, his sales record would have to start from early in his career, or else his clients fall mostly within recent sales, a time span in which people normally don’t die anyway.
On the other hand, there’s also selection for people who aren’t expecting to live as long as the average, and this pool includes prudent people.
And on yet another hand there is selection for people who are expected to live longer than the average (selection from the salemen directly or mediated by price.)
Thank you, Cliptain Obvious! The problem is to say how his claim is implausible or doesn’t follow from his evidence, given that we already have that intuition.
Tell him you found his pitch very interesting and persuasive, and that you’d like to buy life insurance for a 20 year period. Then, ponder for a little while; “Actually, it can’t be having the contact that keeps them alive, can it? That’s just a piece of paper. It must be that the sort of person who buy it are good at staying alive! And it looks like I’m one of them; this is excellent!
Then , you point out that as you’re not going to die, you don’t need life insurance, and say goodbye.
If you wanted to try to enlighten him, you might start by explicitly asking if he believed there was a causal link. But as the situation isn’t really set up for honest truth-hunting, I wouldn’t bother.
Well, kind of. Unlike in Newcombe’s, we have no evidence that it’s the decision that cases the long-life, as opposed to some other factor correlated with both (which seems much more likely).
With a degree of discombobulation, I imagine. I can’t see any causal mechanism by which buying insurance would cause you to live longer, so unless the salesman knows something I wouldn’t expect him to, he would seem to have acquired an unreliable belief. Given this, I would postpone buying any insurance from him in case this unreliable belief could have unfortunate further consequences* and I would reduce my expectation that the salesman might prove to be an exceptional rationalist.
* For example: given his superstition, he may have allotted inadequate cash reserves to cover future life insurance payments.
Scenario: A life insurance salesman, who happens to be a trusted friend of a relatively-new-but-so-far-trustworthy friend of yours, is trying to sell you a life insurance policy. He makes the surprising claim that after 20 years of selling life insurance, none of his clients have died. He seems to want you to think that buying a life insurance policy from him will somehow make you less likely to die.
How do you respond?
edit: to make this question more interesting: you also really don’t want to offend any of the people involved.
Wow. He admitted that to you? That seems to be strong evidence that most people refuse to buy life insurance from him. In a whole 20 years he hasn’t sold enough insurance that even one client has died from unavoidable misfortune!
PeerInfinity added that he had gotten sales awards for the number of policies sold, so I don’t think this is a factor.
“No.”
Life insurance salesmen are used to hearing that. If they act offended, it’s a sales act. If you’re reluctant to say it, you’re easily pressured and you’re taking advantage. You say “No”. If they press you, you say, “Please don’t press me further.” That’s all.
Since his sales rate probably increased with time, that means the average time after selling a policy is ~8 years. So the typical client of his didn’t die after 8 years. Making a rough estimate of the age of the client he sells to, which would probably be 30-40, it just means that the typical client has lived to at least 48 or less, which is normal, not special.
Furthermore, people who buy life insurance self-select for being more prudent in general.
So, even ignoring the causal separations you could find, what he’s told you is not very special. Though it separates him from other salesmen, the highest likelihood ratio you should put on this piece of evidence would be something like 1.05 (i.e. ~19 out of 20 salesmen could say the same thing), or not very informative, so you are only justified in making a very slight move toward his hypothesis, even under the most generous assumptions.
You could get a better estimate of his atypicality by asking more about his clients, at which point you would have identified factors that can screen off the factor of him selling a policy.
(Though in my experience, life insurance salesmen aren’t very bright, and a few sentences into that explanation, you’ll get the, “Oh, it’s one of these people” look …)
How’d I do?
Edit: Okay, I think I have to turn in my Bayes card for this one: I just came up with a reason why the hypothesis puts a high probability on the evidence, when in reality the evidence should have a low probability of existing. So it’s more likely he doesn’t have his facts right.
Maybe this is a good case to check the “But but somebody would have noticed” heuristic. If one of his clients died, would he even find out? Would the insurance company tell him? Does he regularly check up on his clients?
I disagree with your analysis, but the details of why I disagree would be spoilers.
more details:
no, he’s not deliberately selecting low-risk clients. He’s trying to make as many sales as possible.
and he’s had lots of clients. I don’t know the actual numbers, but he has won awards for how many policies he has sold.
and he seems to honestly believe that there’s something special about him that makes his clients not die. he’s “one of those people”.
and here’s the first actuarial life table I found through a quick google search: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html
I’m going to go ahead and post the spoiler, rot13′d
Zl thrff: Ur’f ylvat. Naq ur’f cebonoyl ylvat gb uvzfrys nf jryy, va beqre sbe gur yvr gb or zber pbaivapvat. Gung vf, qryvorengryl sbetrggvat nobhg gur pyvragf jub unir qvrq.
Vs ur unf unq a pyvragf, naq vs gurve nirentr ntr vf 30… Rnpu lrne, gur cebonovyvgl bs rnpu bs gurz fheivivat gur arkg lrne vf, jryy, yrg’f ebhaq hc gb 99%. Gung zrnaf gung gur cebonovyvgl bs nyy bs gurz fheivivat vf 0.99^a. Rira vs ur unf bayl unq 100 pyvragf, gura gur cebonovyvgl bs gurz nyy fheivivat bar lrne vf 0.99^100=0.36 Vs ur unq 200 pyvragf, gura gur cebonovyvgl bs gurz nyy fheivivat bar lrne vf 0.99^200=0.13. Naq gung’f whfg sbe bar lrne. Gur sbezhyn tbrf rkcbaragvny ntnva vs lbh pbafvqre nyy 20 lrnef. Gur cebonovyvgl bs nyy 100 pyvragf fheivivat 20 lrnef vf 0.99^100^20=1.86R-9
Naq zl npghny erfcbafr vf… qba’g ohl gur yvsr vafhenapr. Ohg qba’g gryy nalbar gung lbh guvax ur’f ylvat. (hayrff lbh pbhag guvf cbfg.) Nyfb, gur sevraq ab ybatre pbhagf nf “gehfgrq”, be ng yrnfg abg gehfgrq gb or engvbany. Bu, naq srry ernyyl thvygl sbe abg svaqvat n orggre fbyhgvba, naq cbfg gb YJ gb frr vs nalbar guvaxf bs n orggre vqrn. Ohg qba’g cbfg rabhtu vasbezngvba sbe nalbar gb npghnyyl guvax bs n orggre fbyhgvba. Naq vs fbzrbar qbrf guvax bs n orggre vqrn naljnl, vtaber vg vs vg’f gbb fpnel.
I don’t understand what you mean by a better solution; I wouldn’t feel guilty about doing what you did.
The part to feel guilty about is that I chose not to explain that the salesman is probably either lying, or insane, or both, and therefore probably shouldn’t be considered “a trusted friend”. And also that I chose to just try to avoid both of these people, rather than… thinking of a less blatantly unfriendly solution.
But I can only make inferences on what you’ve told me. If there’s a factor that throws off the general inferences you can make from a salesman’s clientele, you can’t fault me for not using it. It’s like you’re trying to say:
“This dude was born in the US. He’s 50 years old. Can he speak English?” → Yeah, probably. → “Haha! No, he can’t! I didn’t tell you he was abducted to Cambodia as an infant and grew up there!”
Anyway, the next step is to estimate what fraction of salesman with the same clientele composition have not had their clients die and see how atypical he is. Plus, his sales record would have to start from early in his career, or else his clients fall mostly within recent sales, a time span in which people normally don’t die anyway.
I thought I provided enough information, but I apologise if I didn’t.
I posted an rot13′d version of my answer, which also explains why I disagreed with your answer.
sorry if the rot13ing is pointlessly annoying.
On the other hand, there’s also selection for people who aren’t expecting to live as long as the average, and this pool includes prudent people.
Anyone have information on owning life insurance and longevity?
And on yet another hand there is selection for people who are expected to live longer than the average (selection from the salemen directly or mediated by price.)
I like the analysis! Did you have a formula you used to arrive at the 8 years, or is it an eyeball guess?
Thanks! Just made an eyeball guess on the 8 years.
Buying life insurance can’t extend a human’s life.
Thank you, Cliptain Obvious! The problem is to say how his claim is implausible or doesn’t follow from his evidence, given that we already have that intuition.
Tell him you found his pitch very interesting and persuasive, and that you’d like to buy life insurance for a 20 year period. Then, ponder for a little while; “Actually, it can’t be having the contact that keeps them alive, can it? That’s just a piece of paper. It must be that the sort of person who buy it are good at staying alive! And it looks like I’m one of them; this is excellent!
Then , you point out that as you’re not going to die, you don’t need life insurance, and say goodbye.
If you wanted to try to enlighten him, you might start by explicitly asking if he believed there was a causal link. But as the situation isn’t really set up for honest truth-hunting, I wouldn’t bother.
If the salesman is omega in disguise, is this two-boxing? :-)
Well, kind of. Unlike in Newcombe’s, we have no evidence that it’s the decision that cases the long-life, as opposed to some other factor correlated with both (which seems much more likely).
With a degree of discombobulation, I imagine. I can’t see any causal mechanism by which buying insurance would cause you to live longer, so unless the salesman knows something I wouldn’t expect him to, he would seem to have acquired an unreliable belief. Given this, I would postpone buying any insurance from him in case this unreliable belief could have unfortunate further consequences* and I would reduce my expectation that the salesman might prove to be an exceptional rationalist.
* For example: given his superstition, he may have allotted inadequate cash reserves to cover future life insurance payments.
Maybe the salesman mostly sells temporary life insurance, and just means that no clients had died while covered?