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If the roles were reversed, I would have a similar criticism of the other guy. Clearly, the loser didn’t want to pay because he contested it in court — and the victor could have forgiven the debt.

I wouldn’t even make my friend pay me back for lunch if they forgot their wallet — let alone put them through financial hardship for such a trivial, low-effort event as a game of RPS.



> I wouldn’t even make my friend pay me back for lunch if they forgot their wallet — let alone put them through financial hardship for such a trivial, low-effort event as a game of RPS.

That's a bit different. Your friend is presumably not deliberately forgetting his wallet while eating $500k lunches, and if he was I bet you'd expect him to pay you back. And the game of Rock Paper Scissors may be trivial and low-effort, but betting $500k on the game is very much not.

If I enter into a $500k bet on a game of Rock Paper Scissors, it's with the understanding that I stand to lose $500k if I lose the game, and I take that seriously. The only reason that risk is worth taking is if I also stand to win $500k if I win the game. If I win and you turn around and say "oh come on man I really don't want to pay", then you're basically saying you entered into the bet with the intention of scamming me out of an expected sum of $250k, so yes I'll insist that you pay up.


This is a fair point. Part of the reason I would not make this bet in the first place is because I wouldn’t want the put myself into a situation where I either lose lots of money or risk causing financial hardship on another person. It’s lose-lose, in my opinion (I don’t think it’s worth $500k).

I understand how people can reasonably disagree about this and I take back calling him a jerk (although I hope I would not behave the same way in his circumstance). I also lack information about the specifics of what happened.


>and the victor could have forgiven the debt.

That would be equivalent to burning $500,000.

>I wouldn’t even make my friend pay me back for lunch if they forgot their wallet — let alone put them through financial hardship for such a trivial, low-effort event as a game of RPS.

What is the minimum amount of effort required to make a bet of $500,000 valid?




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