Hedging Your Existential Portfolio

[walterzuey]

http://www.economist.com/node/16690715?story_id=16690715&fsrc=rss

Some science bets take "novelty" to a new level. When the LHC was switched on two

Comments

[jmallick]

Ah, those existentialists.

[gunga_galunga]

"The bookies, of course, usually win. That is how they stay in business." Does the Economist not know how bookies work?

[gijoel666]

Advocating for the devil for a moment...

How can the bookie be so sure the wagerers lost? We've been having tornados in NYC this year. Could be a symptom of a slow-working but nonetheless ultimately final effect of the LHC. I guess the bet involved the world ending by time specific, not just being traceable to the device.

Of course, it's a no-lose situation for the bookie. If the world doesn't end, they keep the money; and if the world does end, what's anyone gonna do with money? so they don't care if they have to pay it out. And there's also the issue of at what point a definitive determination can be made that the wagerer has won. It's like looking into a house of mirrors filled with chickens and eggs and weirdly shaped clocks.

How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

[rankest]

It takes 2...

One to screw in the bulb, and the other to observe how the light bulb symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity, reaching out toward a vast, empty cosmos of nothingness.