As I see it, most of the epistemic benefit of betting comes from:
A) Having any kind of check on nonsense whatsoever.
B) The fact it forces people with different opinions to talk and agree about something (even if it’s just the form of their disagreement).
C) The way involving money requires people to operationalize exactly what they mean (incidentally revealing when they don’t mean anything at all).
None of this requires betting large amounts of money; afaict, most bets in the rat community have been small & symbolic amounts relative to the bettors’ annual income. So an easy way to 80⁄20 this would be to set yourself a modest monthly gambling budget (which doesn’t roll over from one month to the next, and doesn’t get winnings added back in), only use it for political/technological/economic/literary/etc questions (no slot machines & horse races, etc), and immediately stop gambling if you ever exceed it.
Then a valid response to your friend becomes “sorry, that’s over my gambling budget, but I would bet 50 reais at 2:1 odds in your favor, and you get to brag about it if it turns out I’m wrong”. (. . . and if you wouldn’t have made that bet either, you’d have learned something important and not even have had to risk the money.)
I appreciate those points: more control, forcing agreements, and operating. But what if I bet on myself based on my own beliefs, my capabilities, expectations, and personal goals, to learn about myself?
As I see it, most of the epistemic benefit of betting comes from:
A) Having any kind of check on nonsense whatsoever.
B) The fact it forces people with different opinions to talk and agree about something (even if it’s just the form of their disagreement).
C) The way involving money requires people to operationalize exactly what they mean (incidentally revealing when they don’t mean anything at all).
None of this requires betting large amounts of money; afaict, most bets in the rat community have been small & symbolic amounts relative to the bettors’ annual income. So an easy way to 80⁄20 this would be to set yourself a modest monthly gambling budget (which doesn’t roll over from one month to the next, and doesn’t get winnings added back in), only use it for political/technological/economic/literary/etc questions (no slot machines & horse races, etc), and immediately stop gambling if you ever exceed it.
Then a valid response to your friend becomes “sorry, that’s over my gambling budget, but I would bet 50 reais at 2:1 odds in your favor, and you get to brag about it if it turns out I’m wrong”. (. . . and if you wouldn’t have made that bet either, you’d have learned something important and not even have had to risk the money.)
I appreciate those points: more control, forcing agreements, and operating. But what if I bet on myself based on my own beliefs, my capabilities, expectations, and personal goals, to learn about myself?