Nope. You’re Still Wrong.

Some time ago I did a post which was in response to one by Fredrik @ CardsChat. Well Fredrick has responded to my response and I still think he’s missing my point. Since he has no way to leave comments, and he obviously reads my blog, I’ll respond here in the hopes of clearing up my message.

First off, Fredrik seems to indicate that because I agreed with him that my argument that he arrived at his conclusions via faulty logic are invalid. The argument he uses is:

I believe this is what caused Bill to claim faulty logic, but I disagree with him. Using over- or underestimates to prove a point is very okay as long as you’re on the side of error that is contrary to the point you’re trying to make. For instance, if I want to show that nuclear weapons kill a lot of people and I say that one bomb is able to kill “thousands of people,” then pointing out that it actually kills “hundreds of thousands of people” is hardly refuting my point. If anything, it’s strengthening my point.

Which is correct except for the fact that I questioned the logic he used at to get to his eventual point. If this were a math problem where say we had to prove x + 1 = 2 it’s possible for one to arrive at the correct value for x but in a way which is mathematically incorrect. That was the point of my response.

The original point Fredrik made (overly simplified and paraphrased) was that it’s too difficult for most people to make a living playing poker. I agree. It’s not easy to make a living playing poker. Nearly everyone who does so would likely also agree. However that was not what I was addressing. What I was getting at was that Fredrik tried to compare playing poker professionally to working a 40 hour a week gig. You’re going to get all sorts of wrong conclusions about that because comparing playing professional poker to a 40 hour a week job is like comparing apples to oranges.

To make a fair comparison, one would have to compare playing poker professionally with something like being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs don’t think about 40 hour work weeks or compare what they do to working normal gigs. They have a vision of the end game and are willing to do what it takes to achieve it (at least most of the successful ones do).

That’s why I say his logic was faulty. He started from a correct conclusion and then worked it backwards incorrectly to achieve his reasoning for the conclusion. Along the way I attempted to correct some of his assumptions and calculations and I think he confused that for bolstering his logic.

I hope that clears up any confusion 🙂