The recent mania over the Mega Lottery reminded me of this comedy bit (I paraphrase)
Moe: I’ve gotta buy a lottery ticket this week. The jackpot’s up to $637 million.
Joe: What was it last week?
Moe: 540 million.
Joe: And that wasn’t big enough for you?
The comedy writes itself…actual quote from one of the participants in last weekend’s drawing: "When it gets as big as it is now,” he said, “you'd be nuts not to play.” The logic is elusive. For most lottery players the odds against winning are astronomically against them from week to week; any win, say, over a thousand dollars would be more free money than they'll ever get in their lives; and the dollar to play is the same whether the prize is $100 or $100 million. Yet, it only becomes “nuts” not to play when the amount itself becomes nuts?
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, discussed here last week, author Daniel Kahneman uses playing the lottery to explain what he calls “the possibility effect,” which, he says, “causes highly unlikely outcomes to be weighted disproportionately more than they ‘deserve.’” Unlike too many others in the smartypants segment of the population who are just happy to derive smug satisfaction at putting people down who “don’t get it,” Kahneman wants to understand what’s going on here. What is it that makes people ignore nearly impossible odds to invest in lottery tickets? And what is it that makes some people who can normally resist laying out $1 for the remotest possibility of winning an ordinary jackpot, suddenly feel inspired to lay out $1 (and stand in line to do so) for the even remoter possibility of winning $630 million? Kaheneman writes:
“When the top prize is very large, ticket buyers appear indifferent to the fact that their chance of winning is miniscule. A lottery ticket is the ultimate example of the possibility effect. Without a ticket you cannot win, with a ticket you have a chance, and whether the chance is tiny or merely small matters little. Of course, what people acquire with a ticket is more than a chance to win; it is a right to dream pleasantly of winning.”
What those who routinely pooh-pooh lottery players miss is that for the mere price of a ticket, the player has bought into a glorious fantasy, even if for just a few days. The possibility of being the main character in a story with an unbelievably happy ending far outweighs coming to the end of the week a dollar short.
But Kahneman also argues that the dynamic that drives folks to buy lottery tickets against all odds is the same dynamic that drives them into a panic over terrorism. And again, Kahneman doesn’t let the allure of elitist posturing get in the way of his earnest effort to understand what makes humans tick. He tells about his time in Israel when terrorist bus bombings were seemingly epidemic—23 attacks between December 2001 and September 2004 resulting in 236 deaths. The rational-minded Kahneman knew that given there were 1.3 million bus riders during this period, the probability of his being killed by a bus blowing up was quite small. Still, armed with his knowledge, Kahneman confesses to an inability to control his anxiety whenever he found himself near a bus. He explains through his formulation of System 1 (emotion-laden) thinking and System 2 (fact-laden) thinking:
“The emotional arousal is associative, automatic, and uncontrolled, and it produces an impulse for protective action. System 2 may ‘know’ that the probability is low, but this knowledge does not eliminate the self-generated discomfort and the wish to avoid it. System 1 cannot be turned off. The emotion is not only disproportionate to the probability, it is also insensitive to the exact level of probability.”
Try explaining to someone with a fear of flying that his chances of dying in a car crash are far greater—and just as gruesome—as a plane crash, and you experience first hand what Kahneman is talking about. The plane crash, the bus bomb, the winning lottery ticket all have the same things in common—they’re rare, dramatic, and grip us emotionally, throwing us into the middle of stories with the potential for very happy endings or very bad ones.
The possibility effect can have a severe impact on an entire society. In his aptly named One Percent Doctrine, author Ron Susskind says that right after the 9/11 attacks Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that if there was "a one percent chance" that a threat was real "we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." That kind of hyper System 1 thinking led directly to a fraudulent war in Iraq, a full-scale surrender of civil rights to airport security, the un-American embrace of torture by Americans, and the creation of a multi-billion-dollar surveillance state bureaucracy.
Most un-Christian like I must count myself among those who believe that the heart Dick Cheney recently received was the first heart he’s had in his entire life. And I routinely refer to him as The Worst Living American. But if this book of Kahneman’s is as profound as I believe it to be, then I must humble myself enough to allow a reassessment of my own thinking—even if for just a passing moment. So I take into consideration all that I’ve gleaned from Kahneman’s research about basic human reaction to rare, but dramatic events and I try to apply it to Dick Cheney. I call upon my System 2 thinking to push aside my System 1 impressions of the man as secretive, cold, brutish and greedy, and I generously try to imagine him as just another American reacting to the horror of the 9/11 attacks—only an American with far more responsibility for preventing such attacks from happening again. Is it possible that Cheney’s reaction was ordinarily human and not driven by a lust for oil, a blind hatred of Saddam Hussein, and the naked will to project American power on the world? What if his reaction springs from the same natural and well-intentioned pool as that of a parent responding to a one percent threat against the life of his child?
Moreover, what if Dick Cheney were an oil company executive who made the statement: “If there is a one percent chance of an oil spill, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our planning."
Or what if Dick Cheney were an auto executive who made the statement: “If there is a one percent chance of an engine fire in this new model, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our planning."
And what if Dick Cheney were a pharmaceutical executive who made the statement: “If there is a one percent chance of a child getting sick from this new drug, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our planning."
Outside his boardroom, the business executive who is willing to pull the plug on new drilling, a new car, or a new drug when faced with the slightest degree of risk might well be hailed for his courage and his conscience. But what about the chief executive faced with an equally slight risk of a nuclear attack? Would he be hailed for launching a pre-emptive strike on a civilian population based on a probability that’s no better than winning a lottery? That would depend upon the majority of his population and those “associative, automatic, and uncontrolled” impulses Kahneman writes about. If the vast populace associates most strongly with the memory, say, of 9/11, then he might be hailed. If, on the other hand, the populace associates with the hell visited upon other civilian populations--say, in Baghdad or Hiroshima--perhaps the executive would not be hailed. As Kahneman makes clear, context, as always, is everything.
Time for another old joke—this one about the girl who is kind of pregnant. There is no such thing as a 1% pregnancy, or course, or even a 99% pregnancy. She’s either pregnant or she’s not. Same thing with certainty. To be an actual certainty, something must have either 0 percent probability or a 100 percent. Death, for one, is a 100 percent certainty.
And since it's Easter, what of life after death?
Depends on whom you ask. Secularists and non-believers—and even some believers, I’ve found—would say that there is 0 probability of life after death. True believers, on the other hand, would answer that there is a 100 percent probability, though the degree of their certainty might vary depending on how the question is asked, for instance:
• On a scale of 0-100 percent, what is the probability that upon death a Catholic will stand in God’s judgment before being allowed to enter heaven?
• On a scale of 0-100 percent, what is the probability that upon death a Muslim will receive a book written by the angel who has sat on his shoulder throughout life recording his deeds on earth?
• On a scale of 0-100 percent, what is the probability that upon death a Buddhist may escape the cycle of birth and death and obtain nirvana.
• On a scale of 0-100 percent, what is the probability that upon death a Mormon will pass through the numerous stages of heaven, leading to the highest heaven, the Celestial Kingdom, reserved for those who accepted all of the necessary rituals performed by the authority of the Mormon priesthood?
This could make for a fun parlor game whenever believers and skeptics get together. And here’s how the scoring might go: if the believer grants a 100 percent probability to all four scenarios, then the skeptic must grant the believer a one percent probability that there is an afterlife. But if the believer gives less than a 100 percent probability to any one of those scenarios, then the believer must admit there is a one percent probability that there is no afterlife.
It may not seem like much, but in the interest of hands across the troubled waters of human relationships, it could be what NASA calls a giant step for mankind. In fact it inspires me to compose a prayer--and what could be a more appropriate enterprise for this, The Holy Season? This would be a rare prayer to probability. It would be a prayer that would allow time for System 2 thinking to catch up with System 1 thinking (like counting to 10, only better). It would be a payer where the one percent doctrine leads to humility rather than certainty, and it would go like this:
I believe that at least one percent of the people I distrust act from the best of intentions. And I believe that at least one percent of my intentions cannot be trusted. I believe that at least one percent of everything I hear each day is wrong. And I believe that at least one percent of everything I say each day is wrong. I believe that at least one percent of everything I do each day should not be done. And I believe that at least one percent of everything I believe is wrong.