You are compared with 99 other people chosen randomly. If you are better than everyone else in a specific domain, you win 1 million €/$. What do you choose?
I'm sure I could beat 99% of a random sampling of people at any F1 track in F1 2023 or Asseta Coursa or iRacing.
It's a niche game experience that not a lot of people really practice to get good at it, and of those that do few have spent the money on racing rigs and VR. My son and I race in leagues and do pretty well. I know it's just a video game but I've occasionally gotten better lap times than the professionals.
My son got me into it and built my rig for me (which is extra special for me!) and last weekend for the first time since we started I actually beat him! He came up and I told him I got lucky because he got cut off by another car and lost control and couldn't make up the loss fast enough and he said "no Dad, your really fast!" Hearing that from my son brought me the feels!
I'm not so sure. There's 34 upvotes on this post so far and with me chiming in there's a confirmed 3 simracers commenting already. Probably more.
And while you are probably better than me by the sounds of it, I'm good enough in my rig that if you make a small mistake or two I have a pretty good chance. Especially if I get to pick the track.
With a million bucks on the line the pressure will be on. Have you raced for a million dollars before?
Lol no, just bragging right ls between my son and I and internet people. I'm not great in traffic, if I don't start on front it gets sketchy for me making it even in VR.
Not because I'm particularly good at it - just because it's incredibly niche and the few dozen other people on the planet who also work in my field would probably not be amongst those 99.
I'm not sure the name of it.. but I can say it's early season 1. Basically all of those clips come from like, 5 or 6 episodes of Season 1. Maybe I wouldn't do so well in this contest.
So I recently one the northern Territory chilli eating championship, and in a month's time me and 6 others are competing in the Australian championship to crown Australia's best chilli eater and decide who will he going to America for the world championship.
What is the selection area for the random people? Is it random from all around the world? Country? State?
I'd choose my profession because it's kinda niche-ish. It's only 0.03% of the workforce of my state BUT the major metropolitan areas have a ton of us in clusters so it really depends on how the random people get chosen that would give me my best shot.
I tried that once, and it was pretty fun! It just annoyed me that you have to take the target back to you to see what you scored and retrieve your ammo :D
Mental math. When I was a kid I could answer math problems faster than they could be punched into a calculator which was a neat party trick I guess. I can still do that but I also understand more advanced math. i.e calculating roots, fermi questions, calculus etc. Back when I was being assessed for ADHD, one of the things that was tested is mental arithmatic. Less than one out of a thousand of my peers can do what I did there. (they couldnt find an upper limit) So there's less than a 10% chance that any of those 99 random people could beat me in a test of mental math.
I feel like beating a specific game quickly is the play here, the more obscure the better, as apart from hugely popular titles, odds of any of those 99 being familiar with the game are slim. I used to do resident evil 5 speed runs, so that'd be my pick. Or maybe mega man x just to have it over more quickly
Shooting, combined carbine and pistol, using Practical Competition Shooting League (competition/armor division) rules. Five stages.
I'm in the 20% percentile for PCSL shooters; I am not good when compared to them. On the other hand, very, very few people nationally compete in any kind of shooting sport. People that personally own firearms make up roughly 32% of the US population. People that practice regularly with the firearms that they own make up a much smaller percentage of that. Of the people that practice, people that compete at all, much less regularly, make up a tiny fraction of all firearm owners.
Even if the 99 truly randomly chosen people are all in the US, I've got pretty decent odds that I'll be competing against people that have no experience in shooting on the clock. If those 99 random people are people from anywhere, then, given that gun ownership is very low pretty much everywhere else in the world, the odds are very, very good that the people I'd be competing against wouldn't even know how to effectively operate a firearm, would be unable to follow the rules, and would end up getting disqualified for major safety violations.
But if the challenge was international, you could get unlucky. Some countries like Germany, Switzerland, or Russia have a very popular shooting sports community. But I like your idea. I would take olympic archery. I'm fine enough to participate in national championships, but I don't stand a chance to the pros. Plus, it would be that an average person doesn't have the muscles to shoot 72 arrows on a target at competition distance.
While it's true that there's a popular shooting sports community in Switzerland for sure, the style of shooting done in PCSL is pretty particular to the US. Modern sporting rifles--what some would call assault-style rifles--are very strictly regulated in most countries. I would expect that countries most likely to have people proficient in that specific discipline of movement and shooting would be from Switzerland, Finland, and Czechia. Air rifle and air pistol are more popular in Russia because of the strict regulations on firearm ownership. (Technically you can compete in PCSL using a lever action or bolt action rifle, but it would be an enormous handicap.)
French spelling. I figure odds are low that any of the 99 people would be francophone to start with, and even native francophones make a ton of mistakes.
Life force (nes) gameplay. It's a scrolling arcade space shooter.
I dabble in trying to speed run it. although I'm no good at the speed running, It is such a niche game with punishing moments I would easily win high score just by playing safe.
Long distance cycling. Compared to the record of 1000+km (~600 miles) in 24 hours I suck, but considering 99 random people I think most won't go for more than 100 miles, so I'm good.
Or oldest stamp they own. Stamp collecting seems to be a pretty dead hobby.
It doesn't state it would just be one game, nor that you would have to win, just that you had to be better, which is easy to demonstrate with a program that measures the error level as backgammon is a game of skill with a large chance factor and not a game of chance.
Apart from the fact some enlightenment on the subject is only a simple query away, you can also test yourself whether there is skill is involved. Just download a free backgammon program like gnu backgammon and play the computer on the easiest setting a couple of times. You will get destroyed. Also, if it were about luck, you would have a completely random world champion every year instead of recurring winners. Not that you would care because you chose not to educate yourself and make an asinine comment anyway on a subject you clearly know nothing about.
I know it is not based on luck but luck does play a factor. Good players do lose to worse players and actually more often than in games like chess. Its exactly like poker. Sure its a game of statistics and calculated risks but its no risk if it can't fail. My point is, i wouldn't place a 1mil bet on my opponent not getting doubles more often than me over one game, or me messing up over 2 games. Let alone assume that no one else would be good at it.
Arguing that you are the best overall player without having to win a game or prove it in any way is just a weird way of trying to win this discussion.
The question doesn't state anything about a game or amount of games, just that you will be compared. Of course there is variance, but that's not what is being measured. All I'm saying is that if you take 99 random people and me, I'm fairly sure that I would be the best backgammon player.
I've done it my whole life, at 5 years old I took apart a old kitchen timer. I broke it, but figured out what I did to break it, what broke it originally, and what I could have done to fix it.
I learned HVAC by being thrown into a truck, and learned it in the nineties.
I learned HL7, Cerner, and a bunch of other shit. Eventually becoming a technical expert for a 4 hospital system. Then I had a mental breakdown. But I can still problem solve better then 99% of them.
Euros, as they're currently worth a bit more.
I put both as sometimes Americans aren't aware of the conversion rate
The best at having my exact DNA.
No identical twin then?
Even if they had an identical twin, what are the odds of their twin being in the pool of 99 other randomly chosen people?
Haha good point, i hadn’t considered the odds of 99 out of 8 billion including an identical twin
A quick approximation with a desktop calculator says 0.000001%
I'm sure I could beat 99% of a random sampling of people at any F1 track in F1 2023 or Asseta Coursa or iRacing.
It's a niche game experience that not a lot of people really practice to get good at it, and of those that do few have spent the money on racing rigs and VR. My son and I race in leagues and do pretty well. I know it's just a video game but I've occasionally gotten better lap times than the professionals.
My son got me into it and built my rig for me (which is extra special for me!) and last weekend for the first time since we started I actually beat him! He came up and I told him I got lucky because he got cut off by another car and lost control and couldn't make up the loss fast enough and he said "no Dad, your really fast!" Hearing that from my son brought me the feels!
I've failed to make Asseta Corsa to run on my VR headset (Quest2). No matter what I do, it runs on the flat screen inside VR. Any tips?
I'll ask my son. I think he uses the same headset as you.
I'm not so sure. There's 34 upvotes on this post so far and with me chiming in there's a confirmed 3 simracers commenting already. Probably more.
And while you are probably better than me by the sounds of it, I'm good enough in my rig that if you make a small mistake or two I have a pretty good chance. Especially if I get to pick the track.
With a million bucks on the line the pressure will be on. Have you raced for a million dollars before?
Lol no, just bragging right ls between my son and I and internet people. I'm not great in traffic, if I don't start on front it gets sketchy for me making it even in VR.
What is your track(s) of choice?
I like the shorter faster circuits with high speed turns. Red Bull ring, Monza, Silverstone, Barcelona and maybe even Paul Ricard. Canada is fun too.
I suck at anything too twisty and technical. Can't do Monaco to save my life.
Monaco I have yet to get a good lap time. It's brutal!
I also like CODA for that reason. I'm still struggling with city tracks but getting better, Singapore wasn't terrible last time I raced it!
Speaking Estonian. There are few enough native speakers on the planet that the odds of anyone out of 99 being better is negligible.
My specific subfield in software development.
Not because I'm particularly good at it - just because it's incredibly niche and the few dozen other people on the planet who also work in my field would probably not be amongst those 99.
Same, there's maybe 40 ppl in the world who can do what I do professionally at the moment.
I won a longest eyelashes contest when I was a baby at a county fair. Maybe that still holds up?
I once judged an eyelash contest and the winner had one lash, just one, that was over an inch and half long.
Minmaxing
If the people gets selected from over the world randomly, speaking swedish would have a somewhat 90% chance of working perfectly.
Or C/C++ programming if the randomness also has incudes age I guess.
Or info about some really small place.
Why not play it safe, and compete in creating a library for getting info about some really small place in Swedish?
In swedish but about some small place in another country. I think you're onto something!
Oh, man.. Maybe MacGyver trivia? I'm not a superman or anything, but it's probably something I could beat 99 random people in.
Any of my real interests or talents, I can readily admit I'm probably just average at.
Ok, give me 5 facts about MacGyver I wouldn't know. I've seen the show but it's been decades.
Um.. let's see.
Even though it was set primarily in LA (and all over the world), half the seasons were filmed in Vancouver.
MacGyver is always super anti gun, which we do get the backstory for. But in the pilot episode, he straight up is just shooting an assault rifle.
The building used for the Phoenix Foundation headquarters is The Qube in Vancouver. I think that is a cool looking building.
His first name is Angus. I think that's a pretty well-known one if you've seen the later seasons.
Dana Elcar started losing his eyesight (pretty sure to glaucoma) and they wrote his blindness into Pete's character.
Idk, those aren't super good ones, I guess I need a refresher.
That's awesome! Thanks friend. And now you have a reason to go watch it again.
What episode is the intro clip of him eating ice cream from?
I'm not sure the name of it.. but I can say it's early season 1. Basically all of those clips come from like, 5 or 6 episodes of Season 1. Maybe I wouldn't do so well in this contest.
So I recently one the northern Territory chilli eating championship, and in a month's time me and 6 others are competing in the Australian championship to crown Australia's best chilli eater and decide who will he going to America for the world championship.
So maybe crane mechanics
Questions about my life
I couldn't compete in that for myself.
I have such bad memory
What is the selection area for the random people? Is it random from all around the world? Country? State?
I'd choose my profession because it's kinda niche-ish. It's only 0.03% of the workforce of my state BUT the major metropolitan areas have a ton of us in clusters so it really depends on how the random people get chosen that would give me my best shot.
10 metre air rifle shooting
I raise 10 metre crossbow shooting
I tried that once, and it was pretty fun! It just annoyed me that you have to take the target back to you to see what you scored and retrieve your ammo :D
10 metre longbow shooting
I was going to put 10m recurve bow shooting but you win! Longbow would be harder and more niche.
Playing Salem The game.
No, not "town of salem"
Player base is only like 1000, the odds of getting one of the few hundred people in the world that could out play me would be crazy.
"Not winning the $1 million". Whoever they try to give the money to would automatically fall into last place with a 99 way tie for first.
It would go to a gambling addict as they would have the most chances to win a 1 000 000$.
Speedrunning Getting Over It
Jesus
Put yourself in one in a million and it's still a safe bet.
I choose Euros, of course.
Robotics. I'm not that good really, but win random sampling, my chances are quite high.
Mental math. When I was a kid I could answer math problems faster than they could be punched into a calculator which was a neat party trick I guess. I can still do that but I also understand more advanced math. i.e calculating roots, fermi questions, calculus etc. Back when I was being assessed for ADHD, one of the things that was tested is mental arithmatic. Less than one out of a thousand of my peers can do what I did there. (they couldnt find an upper limit) So there's less than a 10% chance that any of those 99 random people could beat me in a test of mental math.
Fishing. I will fish a bitch to death, and then fish them back to life again cuz I’m sick like that
I could beat you... For example I know you are supposed to fish a fish... Not a bitch
Speedrunning Pikmin, my record is 9 days
This is now my answer, because my record is 7.
You've just given me an excuse to play Pikmin several more times to try and beat your record haha
I feel like beating a specific game quickly is the play here, the more obscure the better, as apart from hugely popular titles, odds of any of those 99 being familiar with the game are slim. I used to do resident evil 5 speed runs, so that'd be my pick. Or maybe mega man x just to have it over more quickly
iid01 happens to get chosen lol
How quickly I can give up my hope of winning this hypothetical contest
Several things spring to mind, but i'll go low hanging fruit:
Getting my cat to come to me.
Giving me a hand job. So even if I lose, I've still won. 100 times.
That is an easy question.
Shooting, combined carbine and pistol, using Practical Competition Shooting League (competition/armor division) rules. Five stages.
I'm in the 20% percentile for PCSL shooters; I am not good when compared to them. On the other hand, very, very few people nationally compete in any kind of shooting sport. People that personally own firearms make up roughly 32% of the US population. People that practice regularly with the firearms that they own make up a much smaller percentage of that. Of the people that practice, people that compete at all, much less regularly, make up a tiny fraction of all firearm owners.
Even if the 99 truly randomly chosen people are all in the US, I've got pretty decent odds that I'll be competing against people that have no experience in shooting on the clock. If those 99 random people are people from anywhere, then, given that gun ownership is very low pretty much everywhere else in the world, the odds are very, very good that the people I'd be competing against wouldn't even know how to effectively operate a firearm, would be unable to follow the rules, and would end up getting disqualified for major safety violations.
But if the challenge was international, you could get unlucky. Some countries like Germany, Switzerland, or Russia have a very popular shooting sports community. But I like your idea. I would take olympic archery. I'm fine enough to participate in national championships, but I don't stand a chance to the pros. Plus, it would be that an average person doesn't have the muscles to shoot 72 arrows on a target at competition distance.
While it's true that there's a popular shooting sports community in Switzerland for sure, the style of shooting done in PCSL is pretty particular to the US. Modern sporting rifles--what some would call assault-style rifles--are very strictly regulated in most countries. I would expect that countries most likely to have people proficient in that specific discipline of movement and shooting would be from Switzerland, Finland, and Czechia. Air rifle and air pistol are more popular in Russia because of the strict regulations on firearm ownership. (Technically you can compete in PCSL using a lever action or bolt action rifle, but it would be an enormous handicap.)
French spelling. I figure odds are low that any of the 99 people would be francophone to start with, and even native francophones make a ton of mistakes.
Android debloating, fixed gear bicycle maintenance, and navigation without any tools.
Ohhh if I was in your hundred fixing bikes isn't a good one for you.
Picking what I do for a living would be too easy so I go with hard mode and say my ability to emotionally distance myself and think objectively.
Being better at nothing. I win!
If I'm in the 99, it's a draw.
We need a tie breaker. OP
Take my dog for a car ride without puking. She's an anxious mess, nobody stands a chance!
Life force (nes) gameplay. It's a scrolling arcade space shooter.
I dabble in trying to speed run it. although I'm no good at the speed running, It is such a niche game with punishing moments I would easily win high score just by playing safe.
Playing F-ZERO X on Master difficulty.
Long distance cycling. Compared to the record of 1000+km (~600 miles) in 24 hours I suck, but considering 99 random people I think most won't go for more than 100 miles, so I'm good.
Or oldest stamp they own. Stamp collecting seems to be a pretty dead hobby.
Backgammon, pretty sure I'm in the top 1% of all people since it's not a super popular game and I'm a somewhat decent player.
That seems like a risky choice considering it's a game of chance.
It doesn't state it would just be one game, nor that you would have to win, just that you had to be better, which is easy to demonstrate with a program that measures the error level as backgammon is a game of skill with a large chance factor and not a game of chance.
Just like
Russian roulettepokerEdit: adjusted to a better comparison
Apart from the fact some enlightenment on the subject is only a simple query away, you can also test yourself whether there is skill is involved. Just download a free backgammon program like gnu backgammon and play the computer on the easiest setting a couple of times. You will get destroyed. Also, if it were about luck, you would have a completely random world champion every year instead of recurring winners. Not that you would care because you chose not to educate yourself and make an asinine comment anyway on a subject you clearly know nothing about.
I know it is not based on luck but luck does play a factor. Good players do lose to worse players and actually more often than in games like chess. Its exactly like poker. Sure its a game of statistics and calculated risks but its no risk if it can't fail. My point is, i wouldn't place a 1mil bet on my opponent not getting doubles more often than me over one game, or me messing up over 2 games. Let alone assume that no one else would be good at it.
Arguing that you are the best overall player without having to win a game or prove it in any way is just a weird way of trying to win this discussion.
The question doesn't state anything about a game or amount of games, just that you will be compared. Of course there is variance, but that's not what is being measured. All I'm saying is that if you take 99 random people and me, I'm fairly sure that I would be the best backgammon player.
Ok sure. You can have it. Won't argue
Or in other words, a game of chance.
I can turn my feet almost all the way backwards. So I'd probably do that just to upset the runner of this competition into giving me the million.
I suppose I'd probably be the best at being literally Me.
Feels like cheating though.
Problem solving...
I've done it my whole life, at 5 years old I took apart a old kitchen timer. I broke it, but figured out what I did to break it, what broke it originally, and what I could have done to fix it.
I learned HVAC by being thrown into a truck, and learned it in the nineties.
I learned HL7, Cerner, and a bunch of other shit. Eventually becoming a technical expert for a 4 hospital system. Then I had a mental breakdown. But I can still problem solve better then 99% of them.
Seems unfair that I get to do the choosing.
But I would probably pick amount of time you can edge during a goon sesh
What's your record?