The Boxer

The mathematics that should terrify our current President:

Our President is in his heart a gambling man. And the gamble he makes more than any other is to double down on lost bets.

What does that mean? It means that if he loses a particular wager he's made, he immediately bets twice as much on the very next round. And if he loses that round as well, he doubles his bet once more, ad infinitum, until he wins. So in political terms, when he loses a fight or an argument, he immediately raises the stakes, investing twice as much time, energy, and resources in the very next battle, and so on, until he wins the proverbial coin toss and emerges victorious.

The logic of doing so is deceptively enticing. In his mind he asks the question: "what are the chances of getting unlucky twice in a row?" Eventually every losing streak comes to a close, and the longer the streak, the less chance of it continuing, right?

The problem however is that random events are not conditional. They do not depend upon one another. Regardless of how long a losing streak you've had at the gambling table, you still have the exact same chance of winning or losing the next round, regardless of how much you've bet.

You can play the game yourself, or you can write a very simple program that simulates it, as I did a decade ago. And I found the following unfortunate truth: that unless you have an infinite amount of money to gamble with, if you double down on every wager you've made, it's only a matter of time before you lose everything you have. And incidentally, having an infinite amount of money in the first place would defeat the very purpose of gambling, which is to compound your wealth.

How will this play out in the Presidency? Well, unless our current leader changes his habits, he will eventually reach a losing streak that will surpass his ability to raise his wager any higher, even given his vast assets. The last bet he makes will place everything on the table: himself, his country, and perhaps even the fate of the free world itself. And then he will lose, as will anyone whose lives he has gambled with.

I do wish that the mathematics of doubling down were different. But many a gambler has both risen and fallen using its specious logic, and our current leader will likely be no different.