Manhattan Reborn 1978

new York.

night~

Wildfire Bar, 42nd Street, Manhattan.

When Giles and Pine stood at the door of the bar, they both stopped in silence when they saw the "Closed" sign hanging on the door.

Pine looked at the lively scene in the bar through the glass on the door and asked Giles in a low voice beside him.

"What did Panaris say?"

Giles lowered his head and took off his leather gloves, with an inexplicable smile on his lips, and replied.

"He said ~ We are all young people and it is inevitable to make mistakes..."

"..." Pine was silent.

Giles turned to look at his expression and said with a wider smile.

"David, he's my friend."

"You understood me and expressed your support for him on my behalf."

"I want to thank you!"

"No~"

Pine tilted his head and looked at the young Giles, deliberately pouted and said: "I listened to his bewitchment and got carried away!"

"Hahaha~" Giles didn't believe his explanation, hugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"The last time someone said he was old in front of my dad was maybe five years ago, right?"

"That time, Laura shouted that she wanted to go out for Halloween with her classmates. Her mother reprimanded her severely, and her father also said a few words to her, and the result..."

"Haha~" Pine shook his head as he recalled that unforgettable memory.

"The last time someone told Uncle Julie that he was old...it was Laura too!"

"Hahaha~ That's right!" Giles thought of his bad uncle Julie who always liked to smile.

However, after the two joked~

Pine seemed to have given up on his previous idea of ​​persuading Giles, and whispered in a serious voice.

"Before I met David, I had met several geniuses like him, and I found some common characteristics in them~"

"They all know that their abilities are beyond ordinary people, they all know that they can make a difference."

"So they are more willing to invest time and energy outside of work in themselves, so that they can improve and become better through learning~"

“They have indeed achieved varying degrees of success and are the best in their industries.”

"However, they have not really learned how to express themselves, how to treat others, and how to become friends with every stranger."

Pine stared at Giles closely, observed his expression carefully, and said.

"You don't need to be right every time, you don't need to pay special attention to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy next month, and you don't need to worry about the rise or fall of the stock market tomorrow."

"You just need to focus on the things that interest you, the things that you can change with your efforts, and the things that you can get a sense of accomplishment and happiness from..."

"Leave the rest to me!"

"Okay!" Giles nodded happily with a few small flames dancing in his eyes.

Pine smiled and patted his shoulder. Just as he was about to walk into the bar, he heard a voice coming from behind.

"Why didn't you go in?"

Giles and Pine turned around and saw Lilith walking quickly in smart business attire.

She curiously looked at the two people's closeness, and couldn't help but joke: "This is on the street, you are hugging each other like this... okay?"

"Haha~" Giles shrugged nonchalantly, spread his hands and smiled.

"This is how we grew up hugging each other, don't you know?"

"..." Lilith heard another meaning in Giles' words, rolled her eyes at him speechlessly, and quickly walked into the bar door, leaving only a scent of fragrance~

Pine tilted his head and looked at Giles who looked proud, shook his head slightly helplessly, left a word, and walked into the bar.

“Laura will be back tomorrow morning, just wish yourself well!”

"Forehead..?"

"Isn't she in Houston?" Giles stood stunned.

However, Pine had already walked into the bar and ignored him completely.

. . .

More than an hour later.

Above the Wildfire Bar, on the top floor.

David took Lilith's little hand, invited Pine and Giles to sit down, and asked with a smile.

"What do you want to drink?"

"Whatever, Coke or juice will do." Giles said to the maid Chasida with a slightly red face.

"Juice, thank you!" Pine said with a very polite smile to Chasida.

"You all come to the juice bar~ I'll have another drink myself." David stood up and walked to the small bar, poured himself half a glass of wine, took it back to sit down next to Lilith, and said with a smile.

The maid Chasida nodded in understanding, turned around and left with light steps.

Giles glanced at her back, leaned back on the sofa, and continued the topic before, asking David.

"My mentor is going back to Houston to live for a while, and you want to go with him?"

"Yeah~"

David adjusted his sitting posture, fidgeting with the wine glass with his right hand, holding Lilith's hand with his left hand, and shrugged.

“If my mentor hadn’t come back to attend this forum, we would have stayed in Houston until I finished the book.”

"But didn't you say that the overall framework of the book has been completed, can you ask someone to help with the details?"

"Ah."

"However, the details in the book that I mentioned also include many illustrations that are included in the main content and are not completed."

“For this part, I need to use a lot of real historical data to make the content richer and more complete.”

"In addition, I also want to use the time between completing this book to do some social survey experiments in Houston, write my book "Behavioral Economics", and accumulate more reliable experimental data."

"Oh..." Giles tilted his head and glanced at Pine, suddenly heard another meaning in David's words, and asked in surprise.

"You mean you're going to be in Houston for the rest of the year writing a book?"

"Haha~ No!" David took a sip of wine, shook his head and laughed.

"Perhaps I will take my family to Alaska in late spring and early summer in June to spend the whole summer~"

"Then I will return to New York in the crisp autumn weather in September. After finishing my work matters, I will return to Hawaii for vacation until around February next year."

"what?"

After Giles heard what David said, he felt very unhappy and complained: "According to your plan, you won't work for a few months this year? Will you spend all your time on vacation?"

"Yes!" David asked with a matter-of-fact expression.

“Isn’t making money just for spending it?”

"I'm different from you. I'm an only child..."

"Now that I am a multi-millionaire, I just want to take my family on a long vacation and spend some unforgettable moments together."

"Do I have to wait until...when my parents are seriously ill and unable to travel far, do I regret not taking the time to travel around the world with them?"

"Uh..." Giles was speechless.

Seeing Giles' deflated look, Lilith smiled, squeezed David's hand, and said.

"When I'm done with this period of work, I'll go to Houston to meet you. How about we go fishing in Alaska in early summer?"

"Okay!"

"We will definitely have more fun with you~" David smiled happily.

Pine, who was sitting opposite the two of them, saw them chatting and laughing so naturally. His worries decreased a bit, but at the same time, his doubts increased a bit. .

He lowered his eyes and stared at the floor in front of him. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly remembered a very important question and asked David.

"Did you interact with Senator Pushk's family before you came back from Houston?"

"Yeah~"

"Walker Pushk, the eldest son of Senator Pushk, even warmly invited me to their home..." David replied with a smile.

"Haha~" Pine felt helpless at David's questioning attitude and continued to ask.

"That little girl named Ada who suffers from mental illness, are you... again?"

"No!" David heard that there were some misunderstandings in Pine's words, so he quickly waved his hand and explained.

"After I first met Ada, her brother Walker invited us out for a bike ride and picnic and discovered her..."

"Did you find that she likes to be close to you?" Lilith suddenly smiled and continued.

"Um...you know that too?" David asked, grinning in surprise.

"Haha~" Lilith rolled her eyes at him charmingly and smiled.

"I met Senator Pushk this afternoon. He specifically asked me about you. He said that Ada has mentioned you every time she calls in recent days and wants to come to New York to hang out with you!"

"Coming to New York?"

"It's hard for her to even leave the house, so how can she come to New York?"

"This is her problem~"

"..." David looked at Lilith's deliberately playful expression and scratched his head feeling a little embarrassed.

"I swear, I have never done anything to her that crossed the line, and I have no thoughts in that regard. I just want to help her get out of the shadow of PTSD and find the joy of life again."

"Oh~"

"and then?"

"Let her meet you, a bastard who claims to be sincere but very carefree, at the age when her love is just beginning?"

"Hey~ She is so unlucky!"

"Hahaha~"

Paizhen and Giles, when they heard Lilith purposely say this strange and jealous complaint, they all looked at the embarrassed David and laughed.

Amidst the laughter of the three of them, David smiled helplessly and said: "Have you never thought about what the final result will be if she hasn't received help yet and is still tortured by PTSD and unable to get out of the prison in her heart? ?”

"..." The laughter of the three people gradually stopped, and they fell silent with different expressions.

David took a sip of wine, followed his divergent thinking, and sighed as if he was letting his heart fly.

"I once met a drinker who asked me: Do you believe that decisions made by tossing a coin are guided by God?"

"I didn't understand the question he asked at the time, so I answered casually~ On the court, the right to kick-off is usually determined by tossing a coin. Maybe God is paying attention to the game."

"But after the drinker listened to my words, he expressed his dissatisfaction and said ~ If the first ten times of tossing a coin all land on heads, what about the eleventh time? Would you guess heads or tails?"

"I felt that he was asking an unreasonable question, so I replied impatiently ~ No matter whether it is the front or the back, it is God's guidance!"

"Unless you don't look at it, no one can change its final result!"

"...Then what?" After listening to this little story, Giles looked at David who fell into silence and asked.

David raised his glass, raised his neck and drank all the wine, took a long breath and smiled.

"Then, the drinker asked me for another glass of the strongest whiskey and told me what the gambler's fallacy is, what the classical definition of probability is, and what the "Probability Theory" is..."

"The famous economist Keynes, in his "Theory of Probability", named the principle of indifference that different outcomes are equally likely to occur, and that no outcome is more likely than other outcomes."

"But I think the principle of indifference proposed by Daines embodies a simple concept of equal opportunity."

"Because it has been recorded in our long and interesting history that the French mathematician Puffon is famous for his needle and coin tossing experiments~"

"He used more than 2000 coin toss experiments to prove that the probability ratio of heads and tails is 50.69%: 49.31%!"

"And one of the greatest probabilists of this century, the Croatian-American mathematician Feile, used an experimental method of tossing a coin 49.79 times to verify that the proportion of heads and tails is 50.21%: %!"

"We can see from these data that as long as the number of coin flips is enough, the probability of heads is indeed hovering around 50%~"

"I don't know if such results can be used to study some social development laws or interpret some of the things we encounter."

“But I am indeed full of confidence in the world because of its verification results!”

"If tossing a coin is destiny, then the destiny of each of us is equal opportunity!"

"This approach of believing that as long as the number is large enough, the probability of the outcome will be close to the probability of the outcome itself, also has a proper name, called the law of large numbers."

"The law of large numbers is a law proved mathematically by the famous Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli."

"Its definition is that as long as there are enough repeated experiments or observed data, the frequency of random events will be infinitely close to its probability."

"The big data research center we want to establish is based on the theoretical foundation of the law of large numbers, starting from the mathematical level, using frequency instead of probability to determine the probability method, and building a super large database!"

“However, in real life, although we believe in equal opportunities, equal opportunities do not necessarily lead to equal outcomes.”

"For example, if one student has good academic performance and another student has poor academic performance, then the probability of them getting into college will definitely be different."

"Then how to understand this phenomenon from the perspective of probability theory?"

"In fact, both the definition method and the frequency method are an ideal state existing in the theory, or a simplification of the laws of the world."

Giles heard David mention the data center and nodded with understanding.

Pine found David's casual "nonsense" that was obviously "letting go" very interesting, so he simply relaxed and continued to enjoy David's "performance"~

David glanced at Giles, who was "led astray" by him, with a naughty smile on his lips, and continued.

"The famous British mathematician and statistician Thomas Bayes proposed the famous Bayes' rule."

"It is the most commonly used verification formula for iterative methods among methods for determining probability~"

“That is, first use the small amount of data at hand to make inferences, or even subjectively guess the probability of an event, and then continuously adjust the estimate of the probability of the event based on the new data collected.”

"The predictions I made about the oil crisis, the rise in gold prices, the continued rise of the inflation index, etc. also relied on the Bayesian formula..."

“When the analysis sample is large enough to approach the population, the probability of an event occurring in the sample will be close to the probability of an event occurring in the population!”

"But then I tried to plug Bayes' formula into it from the perspective of behavioral economics, and found that people often do not follow Bayes' law in the decision-making process, but instead give recent events and the latest experience the basis. More weight, placing too much weight on recent events when making decisions and making judgments.”

“When faced with complex and general problems, people often choose to take shortcuts and make final decisions based on possibilities rather than probabilities.”

"This systematic departure from the classical model is called a bias."

"Due to the existence of psychological biases, investors are not absolutely rational in decision-making and judgment, and often have behavioral biases, which in turn affects the changes in capital market prices."

"But for a long time, the lack of powerful alternative tools forced economists to stick to Bayes' rule in their analyses."

After David finished this convoluted "theory", he spread his hands to Pine and Giles and smiled.

"The reason why I say this is to tell you the analytical logic I often use when making certain judgments and predictions."

"No matter whether the judgments and predictions I made are correct or not, my logical model has been slowly and completely constructed, forming a very efficient thinking analysis method."

"And this is one of the key points I want to express in my book "Behavioral Economics"."

"Because I hope that more people can have a very clear understanding of their future through the logical thinking model I proposed, and make relatively rational and feasible plans, implement them step by step, and achieve success!"

When David said this, he suddenly stopped smiling and looked at the two people sitting opposite him and said in a low voice.

"In the presidential election of 1800, the two candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, ended up tied, with each receiving only 73 electoral votes."

"Only by obtaining more than half of the electoral votes can one of them be successfully elected president."

"The Congress at that time also tried to solve this problem in various ways, but no one had ever encountered such a thing, and never imagined that such a stalemate would occur."

"Thus, the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution was born."

"The Twelfth Amendment stipulates that if states cannot confirm the results of the presidential election, members of the House of Representatives will select the president, and members of the Senate will select the vice president."

"The House of Representatives, due to the complicated situation of many members, held 35 consecutive rounds of voting. The final result was still a tie and failed to elect a new president."

"Later, with Alexander Hamilton's active lobbying, members of the House of Representatives gradually changed their minds and voted for Thomas Jefferson, sending him to the presidency."

"And in the Senate election, the situation is a bit speechless..."

"The Senate's method of selecting the vice president is very democratic - each person has only one vote, and no one can choose more than one."

"But~"

"If a situation similar to the multi-round vote tie in the House of Representatives occurs again, the members of the Senate will use a coin toss to decide who will be elected as the vice president of the United States."

"The vice president is decided by tossing a coin. This outrageous method is simply... holy shit..."

"But when we look at this from the perspective of modern people, we feel...what's so outrageous about politics?"

"All it has left is seeing a ghost!"

"Hahaha~" Giles, Pine and Lilith were all amused by David's sharp remarks.

----

new York.

After midnight~

Manhattan, 33nd Street.

In front of a bar with no plaque hanging.

Far Boqvino walked to his car, lit a cigarette, turned to look at the silent "Octopus" Wasim, and asked.

"Drink another drink somewhere else? I'll treat you to it!"

"No." Wasim looked up at the twinkling stars in the night sky, and suddenly felt that his experience today was indescribably ridiculous, and sneered.

"Maybe I shouldn't let you continue to participate."

"It's too late!" Farr shook his head sympathetically and said with a wry smile.

"You've already come this far, why are you talking about this?"

"What are your plans now?"

"Go back and wait for news?"

"Hmm..." Wasim snatched the cigarette from Far's hand, took a long drag, and whispered.

"Although, I think what you said is useless nonsense..."

"But I really need your help to find the real mastermind!"

"Haha~" Farr smiled to himself, lit another cigarette for himself, and murmured.

"You heard it just now~ Except for the people on the list who are not currently in New York, they will try to find out why they are on the list as soon as possible for the remaining few people."

"However, the key figures and important clues that have been exposed in this case have been erased~"

"We only have witnesses but no evidence. Even if we catch the mastermind hiding behind the scenes, convicting him will not be as easy as imagined!"

"In this case, even if I want to help you continue the investigation now, I can't do anything!"

"..." Wasim took a long drag on the cigarette, a look of unwillingness flashed in his eyes, and he lowered his head and asked.

"Is what they say credible?"

"Otherwise?" Farr raised his hand and waved around, sighing helplessly.

"Sidrich can do things that our police can't do in New York. They know the cases that our police have no clue about."

"Even in the past few years, more than half of the police officers in New York were secretly paid to work for gangs like them. Many difficult and serious cases were ultimately based on reliable clues obtained from gang members."

"So~ If they can't do anything and don't have any clues, the two of us should give up."

"..." Wasim frowned and nodded silently.

At the same moment~

In the bar behind the two men.

Superintendent Oston felt his mouth was a little dry, looked at Rosenlo Sidric and Alto Sidric sitting opposite, and asked in a hesitant voice.

"You just said...how much?"

"one million!"

"What? Do you think it's expensive?" Alto raised an index finger and asked Auston.

Auston resisted the urge to roll his eyes, spread his hands and smiled bitterly: "He does have some money."

"If you ask him to spend one million to buy clues, I don't know if he will agree."

"Then go and ask~ What are you waiting for?" Alto deliberately showed an impatient expression and waved his hands.

"One million, no bargaining!"

"If he can come up with the money, we can continue talking."

"No money, no need to talk!"

"...Okay." Auston took a deep breath, turned and walked towards the door of the bar.

Rosenlow, who had been watching silently just now, frowned at Alto and asked after Alston walked out of the bar.

"Do you know any clues about this case?"

"I don't know~"

"Then why did you interfere?"

"Haha~" Alto said while smiling and yawning.

"That's a million!"

"As long as he has money, I can find clues!"

"..." Rosenlow stared at Alto for a while, then shook his head feeling speechless, stood up and walked out of the back door of the bar.

Alto smiled and waved his hand behind his back, then rubbed his chin and walked to the bar, staring at the phone and thinking.

Who are the human traffickers who are active around New York City all year round?