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Sophie 🎲🏳️‍⚧️

Tonight I’m reading “Of the Laws of Chance…” from 1692.

John Arbuthnot says don’t roll the dice without knowing the odds and that you can always lose.

It is impossible for a Dye , with such a determin'd force and direction , not
to fall on such a determin'd side , only I don't know the force and direction which makes it fall on such a determin'd side, and therefore I call that Chance, which is nothing but want of Art; that only which is left to me, is to wager where there are the greatest number of Chances, and consequently the greatest probability to gain; and the whole Art of Gaming, where there is any thing of Hazard , will be reduc'd to this at last, viz. in dubious cases, to
calculate on which side there are most Chances; and tho this can't be done in the midst of Game precisely to an Unite, yet a Man who knows the Principles, may make such a conjecture, as will be a sufficient direction to him; and tho it is possible, if there are any Chances against him at all, that he may lose , yet when he chuseth the safest side , he may part with his Money with more content ( if there can be any at all ) in such a Case .
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Sophie 🎲🏳️‍⚧️

I also like this notion of determinism and why randomness is still interesting: “yes, if I knew exactly how the dice were thrown I’d be able to play perfectly. However, I am a fucking idiot.”

Games are fun because people are stupid!

Sophie 🎲🏳️‍⚧️

tbh it’s a line of thinking I have been getting closer to myself. Randomness is unpredictability - so just whose predictions matter? Mine are awful so things may be more or less random to me than to someone else.

Esme Povirk

@Sophie If there are biases in a "random" system that you're not aware of, they can still affect you. Although the closest thing I can think of to an example is the bias in the "browser ballot" shuffle algorithm.

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