No Dice

Let’s play a game. I’ll pay you a dollar per year, every year, as long as I live, and every year, you’ll roll a (six-sided) dice. If it comes up 1-5, nothing happens. If it comes up 6, you pay me a million dollars. Deal? Here, I’ve written it up as a contract, just sign. Sign right there.

What? You don’t want to sign? That’s not fair. You’re immoral. Obviously this market isn’t functioning and the government should force you to sign. Surely if my dice had a few million sides or so, you’d consider signing, right? You could then sign the same contract with millions of others, we’d all be pooled together, and even though you’d have to pay out a few times here and there, on net, you’d come out ahead. Now it so happens that my dice only has six sides. But that’s not my fault! That’s just my “pre-existing condition”. You shouldn’t be allowed to take that into account. You should still be forced to sign the contract with me.

Hey, where are you going? Nobody will sign this contract with me. That just isn’t right. The world’s not fair if no one is willing to sign a pay-a-buck, win-a-million contract with me.

p.s. Ok, what was this post really about?

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