A) You DON'T have to do nothing ANYTHING and you get $40,000 (Elizabeth's correction)
or...
B) You get $1,000,000 if you can pick the number someone is thinking of between 1 and 5.
Which would you choose, A or B?
WHY?
"You have to do nothing"
I don't want to do nothing. Doing nothing is boring.
I think you meant to say "you don't have to do anything" (which is not quite the same thing!)
"You have to do nothing" = "you are obliged to cease all activity immediately"
"You don't have to do anything" = "you do not have to commence any additional activity"
I would choose #1 for two reasons. The first is that my personal "utility function" is nonlinear; 20% x $1 million = $200,000 is not five times as valuable to me as a dead certain $40,000. The second reason is more important.
The second reason is that I am very suspicious of a trick. To begin with, there is no way to know for sure what number the other person is really thinking of. Even if you add extra conditions, such as that the person must first write the number down and put it in a safe, or that the payoff process must be supervised by a trustworthy accounting firm--all know that professional magicians can get around these seeming guarantees.
Since the mathematical expectation of choice #2 is much higher than that of choice #1, the person setting up the offer may be counting on me to take choice #2, giving them the opportunity to scam me. If I pick choice #1, it is hard to see how they could weasel out of paying me the $40,000.
I was doing both: I was giving an English lesson but also participating in your debate!
Is option 1 truly that we would have to do nothing? As I said, I don't like doing nothing! Doing nothing is boring. So, if that is what option 1 is, then I don't want the money.
On the other hand, maybe it was a mistake and you meant to say that option 1 is that we wouldn't have to do anything to earn the money.
