Name: Why Humans Cling To Superstitions
Uploaded: 2022-11-29T19:14:27.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why Humans Cling To Superstitions' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Why Humans Cling To Superstitions' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-29. Transcript available.

risk and reward, that one, there's a gap in the human mind.
I have no other way to account for this,
where it is not natural to think about statistics and probability.
Oh, yeah, that's me.
It's not natural.
And did you know that that-
But it doesn't feel as much fun sometimes.
That's true.
It ruins something, what you want to be true or what you feel to be true.
Yeah, or the mystery.
It takes away the mystery.
But it's a triumph of human intellect that we even went,
could figure it out in the first place.
Here's what you have.
You go to Vegas and there's someone who puts money on a seven on the roulette.
And I'll say, why are you sticking with the seven?
They'll say, it's due.
And they're looking at, and the roulette table,
they have a list of all the previous numbers.
And they say, it hasn't shown up.
It's due.
No, it's not.
It's not due.
Every roll has the same probability.
Every time?
Every time.
It's not due.
All right?
So what is that feeling then that we get?
What is that feeling?
I'm telling you.
I'm telling other things.
People rolling dice and they need a low number, like a three or four.
So they'll roll the dice gently.
And if they need a high number, they'll throw it hard.
No.
And so do you know who exploits this about us?
Casinos.
Casinos know we suck at math and probability and statistics.
So they exist.
Other human beings learned this about human beings and created an entire
industry to exploit it.
Damn.
It's sad.
And my people, my people, the American physical society, physicists, this is
back in the 80s.
They were going to have their annual meeting in San Diego.
And there was a snafu with the hotel reservations.
Vegas said, we'll take you.
You got 4,000 people.
We'll do it.
The MGM said, we'll take you.
So all the physicists went to Vegas.
And we know probability and statistics.
We understand the fact that basically you don't win relative to the casino.
At the end of the week, there was a news headline.
Physicists in town, lowest casino take ever.
So it's just, it's sad.
It was like almost the saddest chapter that I wrote.
Well, why do we feel that?
So what is that feeling that makes us feel like?
Is it a feeling that we create?
Is it a, where does that come from that makes us feel like this is it?
It's because we don't have the brain wiring to know otherwise.
I have no other accounting for it.
We just don't think.
By the way, that branch of math was one of the last to be discovered.
Do you realize probability and statistics was developed and discovered after
calculus?
Wow, why?
If you can pick, I think it's because the brain doesn't even know how to go
there.
I have a research paper from the mid-1700s, which feels like a long ago, but a
lot of math
had been developed before that, including calculus.
And in that paper, it says, I've just discovered how helpful it is to take an
average of numbers.
Right, that's pretty normal stuff.
That's normal stuff.
And somebody had to discover this.
Wow.
About the world.
Hope you enjoyed that video.
And you can watch another.
And you can watch this one.
You can watch this one.
Different options, different choices.
Some guy just brings you one option.
Not this guy.
Two options.
Watch one.
This one or this one.
This one.