Thank you.

The rest of us (except for a few) here feel you should take the hint, pack up and hit the road.

I just answered your questions in a post. But I was surprised that it went into moderation.

Whether DAP should leave the coalition PR and form PD is not dependent on the the probability result but rather the people’s mind in which the population is not homogenous but rather made up of Malays , Chinese , Indians , Kadazan-dusun etc.

Politics is a different ball game altogether and Uncle Kit is seasoned enough to comprehend the whole equation.

Because of the coalition, the PR could form the state govt’s in Perak, Penang, Kedah and Selangor in the last GE. DAP by itself will never dreamt of being in the govt in Selangor, Perak and Penang and more so with a CM in Penang.

Lee Wang Yen’s hypothetical assumption of DAP forming a PD without PAS is just to throw a wedge among the component parties in PR. You have to understand that without PAS, there will be no alternative govts in the PR states unless you want BN to continue ruling.

BN had ruled with arrogance by putting an ex non-UMNO CM to public disgrace with the tearing of his picture and stomping on it ;issuing threats when losing an argument like getting the non-Malay pendatangs to go back to China and India ;threats of another 513 , massive corruption and non-transparent contracts ; does not care for your liberties and packing the controlled media with lies and deceit ; does not care to follow what had been agreed in the Education Act and crying for abolishment of mother tongue etc etc etc.

The above had been going on for 51 years and yet there are some among you who still want to pepetuate with BN govt. rule. Unless you were one of the small benficaries of the UMNOputras or MCAputras policy.

What is so bad about hudud law implementation after all. It is expressedly for the Muslim community only and will not affect the non-Muslims as defined in the Federal Constitution. Why are we scaring the non-Muslims ? Have PAS govt ever chopped off a thief’s hand ?

In fact PAS govt had issued land for non-Muslim places of worship in Kelantan.

Dr. Lee,

Could there be a typographical error in the above sentences? I guess you actually meant that the sentences should be phrased as follow:
“This is because in cases of lottery, the estimated utility value of buying the losing ticket is always negative. But the estimated utility value of B in my proposal is not necessarily negative.”

In your evaluation on the acceptability of either one of the hypothesized options, I believe it will be good if you are able to take the certainty equivalent value of each option into consideration during your decision making process. The power and privilege to form the state government in Perak and Selangor are the certainty equivalent value which is now being enjoyed by DAP. What certainty equivalent value can you expect to derive for DAP if DAP has to leave PR and form PD?

Definition:
Certainty Equivalent is the amount an agent would rather walk away with rather than gamble at winning some increased amount at a given probability. Studies show in the $1000 coin toss that most people would rather walk away with $400. Thus $400 is the certainty equivalent of a lottery consisting of a $1000 pay off at 50% odds.

People like Lee Wang Yen is scared to death at the thought of having his foreskin separated from him at the airport.

Once Mahathir poked fun at the DAP and compared it to the Rockettes – picture long legged girls in Broadway, Manhattan kicking their legs into the air in unison. Would love to see Lim Kit Siang doing those high kicks!

I see you found comfort in Malaysia’s squatting toilets which are a pain in the ass of foreign visitors. Some Malaysians insist on squatting even on benches in Hyde Park! If there is one art Malaysians have mastered, it is the art of squatting.

If you read my response to Jeffrey in which I outline the method of evaluating the expected values of the action of DAP’s staying on in PR and the action of DAP’s forming PD given scenario A and B, you’ll find that what matters is not the absolute values of these expected values. What matters is the relative expected values of the action of DAP’s staying on in PR on A and B and the action of DAP’s forming PD on A and B. Even if both are negative, my contention that it’s better on pragmatic grounds for DAP to form PD than to stay on in PR could still stand. This happens when the negative expected value of the action of DAP staying on in PR given A and B is smaller than the negative expected value of the action of DAP forming PD given A and B (for example, if the former is -10 and the latter -5).

Of course, I wish to emphasise the ‘even if’. There is no reason to think that these expected values will certainly or most likely be negative in the case of A and B. Of course, Katdog is right that most real-world actions of buying lottery tickets have negative expected values. This is because a typical real-world lottery ticket has a very low probability of being a winning ticket and thus also a very high probability of being a losing ticket. For example:

E(V) = P(winning ticket)x(Utility value of winning)+P(losing)x(Utility value of losing)
E(V) = 0.001x(1000-10)+0.999(-10)
=0.99-9.99=-9 (negative value)

This is because in cases of lottery, the utility value of buying the losing ticket is always negative. But the utility value of B in my proposal is not necessarily negative. Whether it is negative depends on, for example, whether the action of staying on in PR given B (and for that matter, given A, and other alternative scenarios) incurs more risks than benefits.

In any case, I should emphasise that the lottery example is meant only to be an illustration of one particular point (and I have already specified the intended point of illustration. I think Katdog and Onlooker Politics have read too much into that example.

Based on Dr. Lee’s estimation of 10% probability of winning, the expected value of the lottery ticket is 90. Based on katdog’s estimation of 1% probability of winning, the expected value of the lottery ticket is zero.

No matter how, the utility value of the lottery ticket for both events of probabilities remains the same, i.e. (1000-10)=990.

katdog could have been given the full discretion to disagree with Dr. Lee on the likelihood of success in getting DAP to achieve its purpose of co-ruling the country with other party or parties without compromising its fundamental ideologies. However, katdog shall not be able to change the utility value of the lottery ticket since the cost of the lottery ticket in both cases remains the same, i.e. $10, and the prize money for a winning ticket remains at $1,000.

No doubt, the utility value of getting DAP to achieve its purpose of co-ruling the country with other party or parties without compromising its fundamental ideologies is perceived to be high. Even though katdog has obtained an expected value of zero for the lottery ticket because it is estimated that the probability of winning is only 1%, we may still find that the lottery ticket is worth-buying in view of the high utility value that may be obtained from the lottery in the event of winning.

Even though Dr. Lee could be wrong in giving an over-optimistic estimation of 10% probability of winning, that would not have changed the utility value, i.e. 990, of the lottery ticket. Therefore, katdog will have to revise his proof in the event that he wishes to convince people on the non-viability of forming PD as suggested by Dr. Lee. Even though the probability of success by DAP in enticing PKR to join PD may be low, the existence of chance for success is always there. katdog may be able to prove that it is not worth-trying for DAP to leave PR and form PD by showing to us that the cost of getting the success in forming PD is overly high and therefore no economic value can be found in it which renders any worthwhile consideration of trying it.

However, in reality DAP may have to risk the chances of losing the political power to form state government in Perak and Selangor in the event that DAP really tries to leave PR and form PD.

1. Have I claimed that I’m giving a description of what a real world lottery is? Why in the world should I give such a description? There is such a thing called ‘a simplified example to illustrate some point’.
2. If you read my post in context, you’ll find that the point of the illustration is not that an alternative with a low probability can yield positive expected value (i.e. positive E(V)). The example is to illustrate that an alternative with a low probability can nevertheless have high utility value (note that this does not refer to E(V). In this case, the utility value for the scenario of getting a winning ticket is 1000-10). Since the example is devised to merely illustrate this point, other details are irrelevant. Even if the expected value (E(v)) of buying the ticket is negative, it is irrelevant to the point I am illustrating to Onlooker Politics. Do you notice that I say in that post that ‘Thus, a scenario that has a low probability of ocurring may have a high utility value. Of course, whether it has positive expected value is another story.’ I have highlighted the point of illustration explicitly.

“Menurut Ketua Penerangan KeADILan, Tian Chua, kehadiran pimpinan KeADILan dan DAP hari ini menunjukan kerjasama yang erat bagi membantu kemenangan Pas di kerusi berkenaan.

“Boleh dilihat penamaan calon hari, kesemua pimimpin tertinggi KeADILan dan DAP yang hadir hari ini menunjukan komitmen untuk memastikan kemenangan besar Pas di Kuala Terengganu,” katanya ketika dihubungi hari ini.

Pada penamaan calon hari ini, Timbalan Presiden KeADILan Syed Husin Ali hadir hari ini mengetuai kepimpinan KeADILan yang memberi sokongan.

Diantara pemimpin KeADILan yang turut sertai perarakan dan pehimpunan di Pusat Penamaan Calon di Stadium Negeri, Kuala Terengganu ialah, Naib Presiden Azmin Ali dan Mustafa Kamil Ayob, Menteri Besar Selangor Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, Ketua Angkatan Muda KeADILan Shamsul Iskandar dan Ketua Wanita Zuraida Kamaruddin.

DAP pula diketuai oleh pemimpin utama parti itu, Lim Kit Siang serta turut kelihatan Exco Kerajaan Negeri Selangor, Teresa Kok dan beberapa pimpinan utama parti berkenaan.

Dengan kehadiran ini, menurut Tian, beliau berkeyakinan bahawa Pas akan memenangi kawasan ini dengan majoriti yang besar.

—-

It’s fun, you know, having realising that we are working together as a team – despite the ideological differences! Hudud or no hudud, See you all in KT! Good luck!

Jeffrey: DAP HQ should have a paper
No need! Not for me, at any rate, I have fully mastered the bathroom hose now.

Jeffrey – or anybody else who comments here – DAP have a fairly complete and functional, if not very interactive, website for their organisation – how much of an organisation is there? A DAP HQ paper? Do they have the idle manpower to spare? I use ‘man’ in the all-inclusive Homo sapiens sapiens sense, naturally. It was curiosity in DAP’s organisation that made me attend their local ceramahs here – and my attendance that makes me doubt they have any spare manpower at all. There were small things (not academic papers!) that could easily have been done better if they’d had an idle eye or hand to spare.

Is there even a tropical island with a mansion that has a swimming pool which slides back to reveal the DAP rocket? Exactly how impressive is DAP HQ?

Just curious, that’s all.