u/monkeysky

I've been a pharmacy tech at CVS for about two months now and I'm already getting really burnt out from being short staffed every single day and having crazy hours on my schedule. I've been thinking about trying to find a job at a pharmacy somewhere like a supermarket, but I'm wondering if it's really that different. Has anyone worked in different places that can compare? At this point I don't know if I'd mind the pay being a bit lower, if that's even possible with my current wages.

There's a simple game where you start with $10 and flip a coin.

If you land on Tails, you lose one dollar.

If you land on Heads, you double whatever money you have left.

The game ends when you have no money left.

The probability of losing the game is obviously not zero, since there is an approximately 0.1% chance of getting ten Tails in a row and losing immediately, but if you play forever, is it inevitable that the game will eventually end?

Maybe this isn't strictly a paradox, but I've asked a version of this question to people a lot more educated in mathematics than myself and they weren't able to agree on an answer.

This is a slight (or maybe not slight) variant of the Newcomb Paradox that came up in a discussion with some of my friends.

As usual, there are two boxes in the room. One of which (box A) always has one thousand dollars, and the other of which (box B) may or may not have one million dollars. The contents of box B are determined by a computer before you enter.

Instead of being a perfect overall predictor, the computer is a perfect lie detector. When a human answers a yes-or-no question to it, the computer can tell with absolute certainty whether or not they are intentionally lying.

Before you enter the room with the two boxes, the computer asks you whether you will take only the contents of box B and leave box A behind, and you must answer yes. If it detects that you're telling the truth, it will put the million dollars into box B. If it detects that you're lying, it will leave box B empty. You are fully aware of the parameters of the experiment when it asks you this.

I have noticed that it was much more common for people to take the one-box stance in this version, even for those who were two-boxers with the standard form of the paradox. This is interesting to me because it really seems to me like (assuming you can accept the premise of a computer that can read your brain to determine your honesty or intentions in the first place) there is no significant difference between the two scenarios. In both cases, the computer sets the contents of the boxes before you enter and are able to actually make your choice, and it cannot change them afterward.

Full disclosure: I am a one-boxer in the original version as well, so I didn't really have the perspective to see why this might change someone's mind.

Does this version of it change anyone's stance here? Whether it does or not, is there some fundamental difference between the two versions of the thought experiment that I'm overlooking?