The Mechanics of Virtue #348 & #349: The Moral Standard of Repetition

348

The Moral Wager: We can pursue the next “great” instance that presents itself, again and again, and each time lose the consequence of that greater accumulation possible only through lighter instances.

  349

To gamble all on a single instance is the only way to be extremely fortunate.  One could become a billionaire over night.  It is also how one increases the probability of one’s failure to near certainty.  To invest in a calculation where one finds a thousand instances setting probability on one’s side is the work of a mathematician.  In all probability, however, he will not be the richest man on earth. 
With the calculation based upon a thousand instances he can approach certainty so closely that he might actually have the right to claim it.  To have certainty ... is this not extremely fortunate?  But for this he gives up one alpha status for another.  Because certainty is the goal, he has no concern so much for outrageous wealth as he does for the outrageous probability of an increase.

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