What is happening in the poll?Scenario 1: You picked YesBy picking Yes, you are answering the poll and saying that the poll will have <50% Yes. But the very act of picking Yes is increasing it to 50%. A contradiction.Scenario 2: You picked NoBy picking No, you are saying the poll will NOT have <50% Yes. But when you pick No, the percentage of Yes decreases (well below 50%). A contradiction.Usually, with yes/no questions, the right answer is either yes or no. But here no matter what you pick, the answer deceptively looks like it’s having the opposite effect. Moreover, here, neither yes nor no turns out to be the right answer. How is that possible? This is the paradox. It is a yes/no question where both yes and no aren’t the “right” answers. I name this the “Polymarket Paradox” (after the prediction market Polymarket).I’m curious. If this were a real Polymarket poll with money on the line, what would we see? If everyone “loses”, where does the money go? Is this a negative sum game?We don’t usually come across these kinds of questions in our lives–some people may never do. We are under the impression that questions like these don’t exist because they never enter our awareness. But they do. They seem to break logic and funnily enough (sometimes) break our minds too. You have to carefully walk through the possibilities to grasp the paradox.Paradoxes are beautiful. In our world where most things have a clear causation chain, paradoxes seem to break them. More people should know paradoxes look like.Here are some more similar paradoxes:
Wish God to create a rock so heavy he wouldn’t be able to lift it. i) Because God must grant your wish, he will create such a rock–a rock too heavy for Him to lift. ii) But because God is all-powerful, he should be able to do anything, including lifting the rock. How will God solve this paradox?
More on Wikipedia: List of paradoxesIf you think of more such paradoxes or know how to resolve these, please let me know.