Archimedes’ Lever A collection of Ideas that could move the world

Review: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My rating:
Read from February 01 to 06, 2011

The bottom line is that our brains are really hyper active pattern matchers. We see patterns where they don't really exist and we have an over tendancy to see causation where it isn't (aka "hind-sight" / "survivor" bias). Put another way, our brains are ill equipped to handle probability and decision making in uncertainty. We tend to believe stupid things and make poor decisions because of these deficiencies. It takes a lot of extra work to overcome our own propensities toward silliness.