Arguably, since Rourke's behavior was a known unknown rather than an unknown unknown, we could have gone a step further by disclaiming that the model's estimate of his chances of victory was probably on the high side. Then again, suppose that Rourke had won. We'd be saying: "see, Hollywood loves a comeback story" and feeling very satisfied with ourselves, perhaps wondering why the program had given him only a 70 percent chance of a win when it "seemed so obvious in retrospect".While I think the amount of hands I currently play per month precludes me from describing myself as a "poker player," I have spent a lot of time thinking and reading about poker, so this is obvious to me. But it trips 99% of people up. Hard. And it's really annoying. Nate gave Mickey Rourke 71% to win Best Actor, and Sean Penn had 20%. Well, Sean Penn won. And everyone is like "wow, Nate's predictions were really off." What the fuck. Yeah, they might have been. But you have no way of knowing that. There's a reason he didn't say Rourke was 100% to win. Sean Penn wasn't a favorite by his model, but still had a reasonable shot.
If you bet with anyone, on anything, with any odds, and lose, you will encounter the same problem/phenomenon.
There's 30 seconds left in a Lakers-Celtics game and Boston is ahead 95-93 with possession. I take the Celtics and lay my friend 3:1. Kobe finagles a steal and cans a three. I lose. He gloats: "Wow bad bet by you." No, GTFO.
