You don't need to read all the pages of that thread

Technically, you don't even need to read anything at all there. Just browse the last few pages and look for the screenshots I posted reflecting the milestones of my martingale journey. I started with free dogecoins, which are available through the 7-day streak faucet at wolf.bet, and earned around 100 dollars in total

I can't actually say that it was a risk-free strategy at first as I was on the verge of busting a couple of times, but then, as my profits grew, I became more and conservative as well as risk-aware. Since I was running autobet, the time was a non-issue obviously, even though I was taking a peek at how things were going on there now and then

This is called recency bias

And it is a serious issue not only with gambling but with trading too, which is, to tell the truth, not very far from gambling (at least, for the majority of traders). Our brain is wired in such a way that we intuitively consider most recent events and circumstances as most important and significant, failing to see the bigger picture. In general, this is a good strategy overall, but it can play nasty tricks with our decision-making machinery

So we start to win and our subconscious tells us that this will go on. Most people base their decisions not on strict logic and rational considerations but rather on their so-called gut feelings, the voice of the subconscious. No surprise they end up losing their profits, whether it is gambling or trading. In fact, we are all vulnerable and susceptible to this illusion

First off, I agree with you about Trump

However, as much as we want to give him a piece of our mind, we should also credit him with the benefit of doubt (maybe, a little less than usual). Really, what is the most widely used disinfectant in the world? Right, ethanol, i.e. alcohol, which people also happen to drink, surprise, and some in quite excessive amounts. Indeed, it is unlikely to help with the coronavirus, but technically, that makes Trump's comment not as insane or stupid as it sounds. I guess he should pay me for this loophole if he ever makes into the court docket for his long tongue

There was plenty of reason for doing that

Basically, I was running a martingale setup whose purpose was to prove that martingale is a simple, workable strategy if employed wisely and cautiously (for more info see here). Essentially, the effort was to show that the randomness of the games of chance (e.g. dice) can be effectively used against the house itself (i.e. the casino). In lay terms, it means that you can earn some dough in the process in a pretty risk-free and consistent manner (as long as the casino stays fair and you not greedy)

See, I was right about your clock being skewed

Last time I checked, the day was more like 24 hours on planet Earth, with a year being 365 days (barring a leap year), which is what betting in auto-mode suggests (even if it is next to impossible to do in practice). So here's the most accurate and correct calculation to date:


So, all in all, it would take you less than 7 years to reach 1 billion bets (and me less than 3 months to reach 31M bets). Well, not exactly a couple of years but still pretty close if you ask me


I remember we have already discussed this matter, and recently you have been forwarded to my topic where I actually show real-life stats proving that after 100k bets luck, as the only force opposing the house edge, becomes utterly irrelevant and inconsequential. Simply put, 1 billion bets, whether made by a single player or by a crowd of countless players, is a massive overkill in this regard

Username: deisik

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Here's my review:

The site is rather minimalistic in design, so there's definitely a lot of room for improvement in this department. Personally, I can't say I quite like the blurring of the background whenever it happens. Instead of diverting your attention toward what is right in front of you, it actually does the opposite, i.e. catches the eye. I would suggest using a mesh screen instead if you need to make the background less visible, more opaque or shadowed, like early Windows systems did when you wanted to shut down the computer

Another annoying thing (at least, for me) is the animation (replay) when I get back to the game from some menu. At first I thought it was kinda a good feature and cool idea, but then it quickly started to get on my nerves. It feels a bit out of place when you walk through the menus on the site and that thing repeats itself again and again. Why not leave everything as it was without needless animation?

When I signed up, I couldn't find my login anywhere, so it confused me a little. Yes, you can use a chatbox for showing your username, but showing it elsewhere instead, all the time, seems to be a better approach. To actually sign in, you have to provide your email address, and there is no way you could use your login. I'm not sure if it is a good idea either (making it optional should suffice, though)

The gameplay is pretty simple and straightforward but a short on-site guide how to play the game is a must-have. As much as I'm into experiential learning myself (otherwise known as trial-and-error), some people don't like it hot and would prefer a short introduction to the game (i.e. doing it the "right way"). After all, not everyone knows how to play BJ, and the lack of a simple guide can be quite discouraging and disappointing

Honestly, I don't intuitively understand units used on site like 650 uBTC. How much is it? And while we are at it, please add doges to supported cryptocurrencies. It is a coin of choice for gambling, where BJ belongs truly

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Now I'm going to withdraw and will update the review shortly

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Update: the withdrawal has been confirmed by the network, even though it took longer than usual. Also, the actual fee was half as much as was stated in the Withdraw menu (5k versus 10k satoshi), hence long confirmation times I guess

That's actually not correct

Within a few months I made, let me count, one, two, three... yeah, 31392329 bets in total at wolf.bet, i.e. over 31M bets. In this manner, if you play nonstop in auto-mode using safe settings (so that you don't get busted in the process) and making like 4-5 bets a second, you could actually notch up over 1 billion bets in a couple of years, give or take a few months. Well, given your vagueness about how much lifetime is exactly, a couple of years may turn out to be one too many in your calendar

I had already tried this approach in the past

Like 1 billion people playing 1000 times can be re-framed as a single player betting a trillion times, and she will lose exactly the house edge, whatever it might be. But we still shouldn't discard a key difference between 1 player versus 1 billion players, and it is variance. Variance can't do anything with 1 billion gamblers as it gets instantly averaged out among so many players with only 1000 bets to make each -- too few bets for too many people. However, it will most certainly kill a lonely player, and I would say it won't take anywhere close to 1 trillion bets. Just like it will probably kill some of the players in their first, and only, 1000 bets, but not en masse

I don't think he was sarcastic

But does he have a choice in this situation? If he wasn't sarcastic or didn't claim to be, he would then have to admit that he had lied, even if unwittingly (what would probably create a "solid legal footing" for filing a lawsuit against him, idk). However, it doesn't really matter either as he may say one thing and then do another, and this behavior has become his second nature (or was his "modus operandi" from the very beginning). To put it another way, he himself doesn't take his own words seriously, deep down. A regular hypocrite, maybe a little bit more pronounced due to his overall inflammatory nature, but once you come to understand it, get to know it, everything fits and falls into place


America is the only one out of the three superpowers (the other two being Russia and China) that doesn't have a lifetime ruler yet. Trump may not succeed (and let's keep fingers crossed that he doesn't) but he won't let go of power easily or voluntarily, of his own accord

The numbers don't tell anything by themselves

For instance, you can take an arbitrary set of random data and build a model (say, a polynomial function of high enough order) that would technically give you a 100% accuracy, at least as far as only the sample data points are considered. Then, on this account, you could go on to claim that the distribution is not random (following your logic here). But it would be a far cry from actually explaining anything in a meaningful way, let alone having any predictive power (the analogy of a random number generator seems appropriate here)

This is probably a borderline if not outright extreme example but it is still illustrative enough to show that numbers can be misleading as well as deceiving, and thus shouldn't be taken in isolation for drawing deductions and making inferences. You can arrive at very bizarre conclusions if you don't assess and keep in mind the nature of the subject matter. Put differently, statistical metrics are sufficient and unreservedly valid only in reference to truly random populations. With everything else, we should rather be concerned with looking for the underlying principles, forces, and causes, i.e. the actual mechanics of some phenomenon or process, and how things work internally

Mistaking correlation for causation has already become a cliché of sorts, but it is only a tip of the iceberg of the whole gamut of possible judgment errors we have to deal with and be aware of

That's the nature of gambling and people enjoying this activity

In more mundane terms, the gambling folk in general are predisposed for and susceptible to losses as well as losing all in the end for two major reasons. First, they are not rational. Well, they can be quite rational people outside gambling but as far as gambling is concerned, they become irrational beyond what you would expect of those engaged in this activity. In other words, you wouldn't really expect a frugal and judicious person to gamble in the first place

Then, let's multiply that by the effect a win big produces, which seems to be the case you write about. When you win big time hitting what is known as lucky streak, you easily get carried away losing whatever self-control and discipline you might have (which you typically don't). As I said elsewhere, it is not losses as such that make you cry, but big wins which you fail to grab and run away with in time without looking back, ever (I've been there)

Because prices were random in those years

So anyone who tries to describe the early Bitcoin history using anything other than pure statistics and its methods, which are descriptive on their own and say nothing about the driving forces behind the raw data, is actually trying to derive a meaning from, or relate a meaning to, something which is, or was, meaningless (as a process) due to its random nature. If you ask me, this is not a good idea as it casts doubts on the plausibility of the entire approach

In fact, I understand why people are doing this all the time (because they are looking for coherent explanations and plausible reasons for anything, even entirely random things), but any model, which is not statistical, either explicitly or implicitly, should separate the random part from the part which it tries to explain if it is to have any predictive power, i.e. an ability to generate verifiable predictions. But in case of early Bitcoin, there is simply nothing to winnow out

No offense intended, by from my vantage point anyone who takes years prior to 2015 (not even speaking of 2010-2012) and says that their model works good on them too actually discredits the approach they are taking. In reference to Bitcoin, for early years one should use models and frameworks describing stochastic processes like random walk as Bitcoin's dynamic back in the day was completely chaotic and random

This is not to say that today's prices are not random for significant part, even though with more fundamental factors at play now

I sent you a merit, and it says this cannot be undone. However, what is done by one man can always be undone by another (generally speaking). I agree with you that it will be a daunting task on its own. But ultimately, all it takes is changing a few words or lines in some document, even if it is the U.S. Constitution. Did Trump think about that, or rather, is he thinking about that now? As they also say, if there is a will, there is a way

Further, let's keep in mind that we already know of the U.S. Constitution's past and history. It was changed before, in fact, numerous times, and some of these changes look pretty ridiculous now - like the infamous 18th amendment (Prohibition). Even if "there is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail"

It is kinda crazy that such things need a Constitution amendment, and then another one to get rid of them

What are the odds of Trump canceling the elections altogether? I remember when he was elected for the first time (well, let's assume he gets re-elected this time), there were insinuations how he would want to go for the eternal presidency (Putin-style or the Chinese one, what's his name). Now seems to be just about time to make a bold move and turn the tables, given the coronavirus situation. As they say, strike while the iron is hot. What do you guys think?

Is it possible to pull off?

Bitcointalk username: deisik
Bitcointalk profile URL: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=156665
Amount of earned merit in the last 120 days: 30+
BTC Address: 15ude7kyiDbqGSH36FbcyRm1bHq37nxcLN

Will add signature etc if accepted

Я думаю, тесты здесь положительной роли не играют

Если игнорировать проблему по примеру Лукашенко (хотя он, как обычно, уже успел включить заднюю), то это только приведет к еще большему числу заболевших за короткий период, и, соответственно, к значительному росту смертности, которую уже так просто не спрячешь

Есть другое объяснение низкому числу заболевших в России и на Украине - это поголовные прививки от туберкулеза при Советах, которые (якобы) сейчас более-менее защищают от коронавируса взрослое население. В подтверждение этой теории говорит миллион (миллион, Карл) заболевших ковидом в США, в которых эту прививку никогда массово не делали

Let's continue from here


Correlation is not causation

More specifically, you can't even compare the stock market with Bitcoin in a meaningful way as soon as you try to dig a little deeper. But you can easily fall into a trap of misleading numbers which make such comparisons possible and highly appealing for their ease and seeming simplicity. Bitcoin and stocks are two entirely different classes of assets even if both classes are valued in the US dollar


I actually agree that Taleb is mostly a fountain of empty verbiage and vacuous rhetoric. You can call it bullshit and him crazy if you please, I don't really mind (or care). However, let's not throw the antifragility baby out with the bathwater of opinionated talk and mindless rant


I understand that you don't like the term

Just in case, I don't like it either. But I have already come up with another word for this phenomenon. Evolution is the right word for it since the entirety of it hinges on what Taleb calls antifragility. The takeaway is that it is definitely not like "hardly documented outside of nassim taleb's invention"

As I already pointed out in the thread, in a broader context, it encompasses all living and even some non-living matter (e.g. crystals growing and dissipative structures forming) decreasing their own entropy and increasing the entropy of the world around them in a way the second law of thermodynamics doesn't get hurt in the process

Translation:


Whoever it may concern, please note that this topic is not the right place for discussing the subject matter of the translated texts. On the other hand, if you want to discuss the translation itself, you're welcome indeed

That's exactly how antifragility is supposed to come about and set in

Volatility is required for antifragility to kick in as it makes Bitcoin more robust and resilient with time. If it were rock solid, anything that would crash it would probably kill it as well. The irony is that, with more volatility Bitcoin becomes less susceptible to its negative effects as it kinda gets used to it. These effects simply wear themselves out

Some people leave, no doubt about that, but those who remain make Bitcoin stronger overall through both the sheer number, or rather ratio, of stronger hands remaining and the hands themselves becoming stronger in the process (let's call it a double antifragile impact)