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The magic of participatory randomness


Preparing for RNG Day 2024 celebrations by infodumping

Randomness is a critical component of cryptography, the design of many games and scientific experiments, civic processes like elections and jury selection, and many algorithms in vastly different areas of math and computer science. In situations where you absolutely do not trust anyone else not to rig a random number generator, you have far more reason to be confident in this over coin flipping which has been shown to be biased, drawing from decks of cards which are subject to various types of false shuffles, or traditional lottery methods which have a wonderful history of fraud. As games of Monopoly progress and more of the properties are purchased there are a decreasing number of choices to make - players simply roll, pass go and collect $200, draw cards, pay rent if necessary, and eventually go bankrupt.

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