Refusing to take small monetary risks measured 0-10% seems reasonable to me.
As you might imagine given my page on modafinil, I get emails all the time from people interested in modafinil and often in ordering or obtaining modafinil.
I continue to be struck by how many of them, despite apparently reading carefully my page in which I cover empirical observations of the risk (financial and legal), risk estimation, cost-benefit calculations, etc., tell me that they are not ordering because they feel it’s too risky.
Don’t order because you respect the laws, sure; don’t order because you’re worried about unknown long-term health effects, sure (even if I think the existing literature, discounting, and QALYs address that); don’t order because you think that sleep deficits will reduce your creative or higher-order faculties, sure. Those are legitimate reasons. But you’re not ordering because you’re worried about a 1-10% chance of losing $100 in exchange for a chance of gaining the equivalent of several hundred dollars? What?!
I can’t decide whether they’re just lying to me as a form of plausible deniability, self-selected for being the few people who would fail to internalize expected value (mymodafinil.net seems to be selling well to Redditors), having a ‘true refusal’ problem where the risk is just an excuse, or what.
Refusing to take small monetary risks measured 0-10% seems reasonable to me.
As you might imagine given my page on modafinil, I get emails all the time from people interested in modafinil and often in ordering or obtaining modafinil.
I continue to be struck by how many of them, despite apparently reading carefully my page in which I cover empirical observations of the risk (financial and legal), risk estimation, cost-benefit calculations, etc., tell me that they are not ordering because they feel it’s too risky.
Don’t order because you respect the laws, sure; don’t order because you’re worried about unknown long-term health effects, sure (even if I think the existing literature, discounting, and QALYs address that); don’t order because you think that sleep deficits will reduce your creative or higher-order faculties, sure. Those are legitimate reasons. But you’re not ordering because you’re worried about a 1-10% chance of losing $100 in exchange for a chance of gaining the equivalent of several hundred dollars? What?!
I can’t decide whether they’re just lying to me as a form of plausible deniability, self-selected for being the few people who would fail to internalize expected value (mymodafinil.net seems to be selling well to Redditors), having a ‘true refusal’ problem where the risk is just an excuse, or what.