Whether or not to get insurance should have nothing to do with what makes one sleep
This (and much of the rest of your article) seems needlessly disdainful of people’s emotions.
Wealth does not equal happiness!
If it did, then yes, 899 < 900 so don’t buy the insurance. But in the real world, I think you’re doing normal humans a big disservice by pretending that we are all robots.
Even Mr. Spock would take human emotions into consideration when giving advice to a human.
Wealth not equaling happiness works both ways. It’s the idea of losing wealth that’s driving sleep away. In this case, the goal of buying insurance is to minimize the risk of losing wealth. The real thing that’s stopping you sleep is not whether you have insurance or not, it’s how likely it is that something bad happens, which will cost more than you’re comfortable losing. Having insurance is just one of the ways to minimize that—the problem is stress stemming from uncertainty, not whether you’ve bought an insurance policy.
The list of misunderstandings is a bit tongue in cheek (at least that’s how I read it). So it’s not so much disdainful of people’s emotions, as much as it’s pointing out that whether you have insurance is not the right thing to worry about—it’s much more fruitful to try to work out the probabilities of various bad things then calculate how much you should be willing to pay to lower that risk. It’s about viewing the world through the lens of probability and deciding these things on the basis of expected value. Rather than have sleepless nights, just shut up and multiply (this is a quote, not an attack). Even if you’re very risk averse, you should be able to just plug that into the equation and come up with some maximum insurance cost above which it’s not worth buying it. Then you just buy it (or not) and sleep the sleep of the just. The point is to actually investigate it and put some numbers on it, rather than live in stress. This is why it’s a mathematical decision with a correct answer. Though the correct answer, of course, will be subjective and depend on your utility function. It’s still a mathematical decision.
Spock is an interesting example to use, in how he’s very much not rational. Here’s a lot more on that topic.
This (and much of the rest of your article) seems needlessly disdainful of people’s emotions.
Wealth does not equal happiness!
If it did, then yes, 899 < 900 so don’t buy the insurance. But in the real world, I think you’re doing normal humans a big disservice by pretending that we are all robots.
Even Mr. Spock would take human emotions into consideration when giving advice to a human.
Wealth not equaling happiness works both ways. It’s the idea of losing wealth that’s driving sleep away. In this case, the goal of buying insurance is to minimize the risk of losing wealth. The real thing that’s stopping you sleep is not whether you have insurance or not, it’s how likely it is that something bad happens, which will cost more than you’re comfortable losing. Having insurance is just one of the ways to minimize that—the problem is stress stemming from uncertainty, not whether you’ve bought an insurance policy.
The list of misunderstandings is a bit tongue in cheek (at least that’s how I read it). So it’s not so much disdainful of people’s emotions, as much as it’s pointing out that whether you have insurance is not the right thing to worry about—it’s much more fruitful to try to work out the probabilities of various bad things then calculate how much you should be willing to pay to lower that risk. It’s about viewing the world through the lens of probability and deciding these things on the basis of expected value. Rather than have sleepless nights, just shut up and multiply (this is a quote, not an attack). Even if you’re very risk averse, you should be able to just plug that into the equation and come up with some maximum insurance cost above which it’s not worth buying it. Then you just buy it (or not) and sleep the sleep of the just. The point is to actually investigate it and put some numbers on it, rather than live in stress. This is why it’s a mathematical decision with a correct answer. Though the correct answer, of course, will be subjective and depend on your utility function. It’s still a mathematical decision.
Spock is an interesting example to use, in how he’s very much not rational. Here’s a lot more on that topic.