a convo with my dad about value

off to the city

i recently moved into the city to start my first ever fulltime job! i just graduated from college, finished my post-graduation asia trip, played a lot of tft, and am about to start on a very, very long journey of my life that is known as: a career 🤧. i'm working in nyc, and i'm fortunate enough that my parents live in new jersey, so my dad could just help me move all of my stuff to the city. during these trips to the city, my dad and i would just have random conversations about things in life, and there was one in particular that stood out to me

the lottery

back when i was having this conversation with my dad, the powerball (i think? i don't remember the exact details) lottery did not have winning numbers drawn for a few weeks, and the jackpot was growing up to over 1.4B dollars. while we were talking, my dad told me about the lottery tickets he had bought, and while i knew that he occasionally purchased them, i was surprised when he told me that in these past few weeks, he had been buying them more often than usual (i.e. from once in a few months to once every few days)

when i heard this, i began thinking more about it. from a straightforward point of view, this behavior seems rational: as the prize goes up, the value of each ticket should go up (ignoring the fact that they raised the ticket prices; i'm not exactly sure what their policy is on changing the ticket price with relation to the jackpot size), and so it seems natural to buy more tickets. but i realized that to my family, the normal large jackpot size (~200-300M) vs the current jackpot (~1.4B) realistically doesn't mean much. both amounts would change our lives and our descendants' lives forever, and with my parents' personalities, i didn't think that there would be any realistic difference in the amount of money besides maybe the new house they would get would be a couple million dollars more expensive

if that's the case, then why would the jackpot going up result in a change in behavior? the value of each ticket stays the same from a socioeconomic standpoint, so why would a change in lottery value result in a change in purchasing behavior? to check, i asked my dad if there was a difference to him, and he laughed and said no. i asked him why it would change his purchasing behavior, and after a pause, he told me that maybe there was no difference, but he already internally knows that when he buys a ticket, he's losing money. but to him, and to many other people, it's about the hope and excitement it brings. maybe he knows that he's going to on average lose money, but the excitement, the buildup, and the idea that he could win adds a bit of extra value to his life in that moment, and he chooses to sacrifice those few extra dollars once in a few months or days. and when the fervor builds up, the hope builds up, maybe that excitement in life is worth losing pennies a bit more in life

perceived value

people buy things when their perceived value is greater than their perceived price. and for something that seems like the math doesn't add up like gambling, maybe the external factors you can't account for make things worth it to some people rather than others. everyone has a different value function that combines all of their life experiences and their current position in life, but i don't think we should impose our value functions on others. my value function is different from my dad's, and i wouldn't make the same decisions he makes. but i don't think he's wrong for it. there are plenty of things i spend my time on that he doesn't think are important (i.e. decorating or getting nice technology) and maybe some of my purchases are not "worth it" from an socioeconomic perspective. but there are different things i like / value / have preferences for and so they are worth it to me

i think there is much variation in value functions beyond just what kinds of things you like. in particular, people differ heavily when it comes to evaluating short term happiness over long term horizons. for example, when people get a paycheck, there is a wide range of things you can do with the extra money. at one extreme, you can invest it all into retirement and never use any of it for current gain. on the other extreme, you can spend it all immediately on material goods. and then there are things in between that most people take, such as saving a percentage of it. i think this is another area where people vary so differently, and just because someone differs from you doesn't make them "right" or "wrong"

i think many people would say there is some global sense of a "wrong" value function. i.e. if someone spends all of their extra money on lottery tickets and doesn't save anything for retirement, i think almost everybody would agree that this is a bad idea and that their value fucntion is overly discounting their future self. for the people who prey on other people (i.e. criminals / racists / etc.), i think their value function isn't considering the happiness of other people. i think this is a hard topic to pin down what seems to be a "wrong" value function, but those are just some immediate thoughts that come to mind

my overall point is that everyone has a different value function, and while there might be some idea that some are globally "right" or "wrong", i think it is important to remember that a value function can be "right" but not be yours. everyone has a different way of viewing the world that is based on their own perspective and personal experiences. maybe i don't value the hope and experience of buying a lottery ticket very highly and would never buy one, but every once in a while, my dad does, and that's ok