The Lights Go Out
I. Data
St. Petersburg paradox. Pay a fee, flip coins until heads, win $2^n.
| Fee | Survivors | Median Wealth | G/A Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| $3 | 100% | $947 | 0.94 |
| $5 | 100% | $371 | 0.88 |
| $6 | 90% | $89 | 0.52 |
| $7 | 67% | $0 | 0.19 |
| $9 | 4% | $0 | 0.01 |
The transition is three dollars wide.
II. Heat
X-axis: entry fee. Y-axis: time. Color: median wealth.
Left side: everyone grows. Right side: everyone dies. The boundary flickers — individual trajectories crossing back and forth before the statistics settle.
III. Poem
the lights go out one at a time. you don't notice any one of them.
at some point you can't read.
IV. Lights
Sixteen panels, top-left to bottom-right. Fee rising from $2 to $12. Each dot is an agent. Bright means alive. Dark means ruined.
The same three-dollar window. The same cliff.
Four views of one thing. The data table says where. The heatmap says when. The poem says how it feels. The lights say who.
None of them is the explanation. Together they're closer.
