I'm disappointed by the downvotes and by the answers. I don't see any problem with this question, and the concept it points at is useful to think about.

This is utterly deranged and I'm not sure if it was meant as a joke or not, but fuck I enjoyed it, and holy shit that WebMD link is absolutely crazy. Thanks for posting.

In all seriousness: I suspect we should explore such crazy ideas at least intellectually, just because we never know where the mind could turn after having considered them.

pick every company in proportion to their market cap

I didn't know this, now it makes much more sense, thank you.

Yes, right, so to continue this line of thought: since more diversified means less risk, Gwern would want to buy VTSAX if he needs to spend that money in a relatively short time horizon. If this isn't the reason, though, from what I gathered from a personal finance book I read years ago, funds tracking S&P500 always outperformed funds tracking the entire U.S. equity market over long periods (is this actually true?). So I was curious about why Gwern made such a choice in case the reason I hypothesized (he is investing money he potentially needs shorter-term) was wrong and there are actually good reasons to buy funds tracking the total US equity market even when saving long term. 

Why not S&P500?

Once you have dealt with signaling, one other huge problem remains. I have met just one person IRL who actually invests (my brother). Everyone else isn't aware safe investment options exist and they just put everything in the bank account. 

Also, in my experience, middle-aged and older people tend to downplay their wealth and not brag about it (why? Not entirely sure). Younger people instead seem more braggy... but most young people aren't very wealthy. This is just my experience though. I wonder if it is actually common.

Another angle to view this is "coming up with ideas is compulsory if you want to optimize literally everything". Bonus: when you practice holding off proposing solutions, ideas are usually better. 

True. Thanks for the good tip. I might actually implement it now that the weather and temperature are nicer.

Italy. House of 5 people. A city with around 1k cases per day for a few months. One person goes to school, sees friends, invites friends into the house. Another travels abroad or inside the country for a few days every 10 days or so and doesn't always get tested when returning. When he is in the house he also invites his girlfriend, eats out, sees friends, etc. In the microcovid test site I put 5 ppl house with 10 close contacts for lack of better options. Sounds reasonable?

Edit: Italy's vaccination rate sucks. Not gonna see a vaccine for me or anyone in the house with risky behavior till 2022

My risk should be from 19% to 82% probability in the next six months. This, if I always remain in the house. In order to avoid that, I should put my life on hold and get a full-time job I dislike. And people call me exaggerated and crazy both IRL and online. Long-term consequences of Covid are what worry me the most. Idk how to deal with this tbh. Genuinely asking.