ideas-rationality

Should rationality be determined by maximizing expected value or by maximizing the median or by maximizing the mode?

exercise: how much would someone have to pay you to cut off your arms? would you make a bet where: if you win you get 100x that amount, if you lose your arms are cut off, and the chance of winning it is 1 in 50?

i contend that you are influenced by not just the expected value, but also the fact that there is a 98% chance that you will end up with no arms and nothing to show for it.

i contend that people are mainly influenced by expected value when there is the possibility of iteration so that on timescale on the order of their lifetime, there is a decent chance of winning --- otherwise, the expected value will have to be ridiculously large in order to be decisive.