Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
Oh well I can help you with that one. No one is thinking about "changing how people feel" except perhaps you.

Looking at the bet discussion (and recognizing, of course, that there will be no actual bets), I do not think "you're not willing to put actual money on the Protean, so your faith is weak" would be a logically valid approach. A much more interesting question, to me, is how people would act in the following situation:

An entity offers the following bets. You can choose any number of them, and put an amount of money on each with a limit somewhere in six figures. Each has 1:1 odds.

1) The comic will reveal the creature in the darkness to be a protean.
2) The comic will reveal the creature in the darkness to be anything that is not a protean.
3) The comic will reveal the creature in the darkness to be a hunting horror.
4) The comic will reveal the creature in the darkness to be anything that is not a hunting horror.

There is no doubt that the entity will pay off all bets that someone wins, nor that the entity is able to collect if someone loses. It is unclear whether, if someone should bet and lose money they do not have, the entity would be able to teleport away future paychecks, able to enslave that person's soul if they die still indebted, or would simply disappear (with all the money that person currently has but no more) if they declared bankruptcy.

Betting both 1 and 2, or both 3 and 4, means hedging. If you bet an exactly equal amount on either of those pairs, the entity will give you a flat look and not record the bet.

Betting 1 and 3 would guarantee losing at least one bet.

Betting the same amount on 2 and 4 would mean that if the creature turns out to be (say) a slaad, you win both. If the creature turns out to be either a protean or a hunting horror, you get nothing. You cannot lose money in this scenario.

Betting the same amount on 1 and 4, or 2 and 3, would mean you could potentially win--or lose--twice the limit.

Given the guarantees I've stated, betting nothing at all would be fundamentally irrational (the 2 and 4 combination can get much money and can't lose any), but I suspect some people would have enough of an aversion to gambling to choose it anyway.
Luckily for you, I'm not averse to gambling with forum-magic entities that I automatically trust.

Hypothetically speaking, in the Kish-Approved Scenario, I put as much as I can evenly split between 2 and 4.

Hm. I'm going to add the further constraint that my memory of previous bets is erased after each bet, so each prediction of the future is made without knowledge of the others. In that case,

1. I bet $7.00.
2. I bet $25.00
3. I ask if there is a secondary market for bets that this entity has made with other persons.
4. I bet $80.00