Why do some people always get rich by playing with dogs, but you will just be killed if you play? Is it an opportunity or a trap? Why does investing in a business seem easy and profitable for others, but your life is worse than going back to work? This is a cognitive trap! You will understand if you understand what survivor bias is! Sister Bei secretly tells you the truth: learn from losers, not from winners. What you see is not the truth, but just the tip of the iceberg!
Let's see how survivor bias affects our lives and cognition. Let me tell you a true story that happened during World War II. At that time, many US fighter planes were shot down by the enemy every time they performed a mission. The surviving planes were also full of bullet holes. In order to reduce combat losses, the US military decided to add steel plates to the planes.
But the question is which part should be reinforced? Most people think that it is enough to count the distribution of bullet holes on the plane, and reinforce the part with the most bullet holes. As a result, it was found that the wings had the most bullet holes, so they planned to add steel plates to the wings. At this time, a statistician stood up to object, saying "You have it completely wrong", "You should reinforce those places without bullet holes", "Because the wings can fly back after so many bullets", "It means that it is not fatal if it moves here". However, the engines of all the planes were not hit, which just shows that this may be a fatal weakness. "Everyone who is hit is dead", "You can't count it at all", and later the US military adopted his opinion, and the loss rate of aircraft was greatly reduced.
This story reveals a very important statistical concept, survivor bias, which means that we always focus on those successful survivors and ignore the failed individuals, thus drawing biased conclusions. The result is that we think we see the world clearly, but in fact we only see the tip of the iceberg. Taleb said that if we want to truly understand a phenomenon, we must learn to think like a statistician and consider the integrity of the sample first, especially those failed cases, otherwise the conclusion will definitely be distorted. If you understand this logic, your view of the world may be completely different in the future. Many things that seem reasonable on the surface actually cannot stand up to scrutiny.
For example, a typical case is success studies, which tells us that the secret to success lies in diligence, time management, optimism, and adventurous spirit, etc. We often see that those successful people seem to have these traits, so we think that these are the "golden rules" of success. But the question is, are those who fail not diligent, optimistic, and hardworking? Of course not, in fact, many people have these traits. This conclusion ignores the fact that success is often affected by luck factors such as time, place, and people, so it is also a problem of probability. How can we grasp the trend, follow the general trend, and improve our winning rate? This is the question that everyone should really think about, instead of focusing on those superficial phenomena and indulging in toxic chicken soup.
The same is true for innovation. The mainstream view now is that it is the key to success. People who dare to innovate are the leaders of the times. Why is the United States so powerful? Because it is innovative. Why does Shenzhen develop so fast? Because it is innovative. Huawei and DJI are also because of innovation, but this idea is obviously exaggerated. The inevitability between success and innovation. We only see how glamorous people who succeed in innovation are, but ignore how low the probability is. The reality is that a large number of innovative companies have failed, and only a very small number have succeeded. At the same time, many non-innovative companies are also developing steadily and are very successful in their own fields. Again, the survivors are not all of the samples. If we practice this kind of statistical thinking more, we can avoid many hidden risks in life.
For example, when we were playing dog hunting, we saw the projects recommended by Kols, and the success rate and rate of return seemed pretty good, so many newbies bought them boldly, but ended up losing a lot. What went wrong here? Did Kols falsify their data? The projects and data posted are real, but what you see are the short-term survivors, because each sector and project has its own cycle of popularity. This sector is popular during this period, and that sector is popular after a while. Most people will deploy multiple projects at the same time and let them run on their own. The ones that run out can be on the list and be seen by us. Those that don’t run out may just disappear without a rug and you won’t see them at all. So this also tells us a truth, the income from playing dog hunting is extremely unstable and the risk is extremely high, which is no different from gambling. If you can’t control your hands, just play occasionally, but you must not gamble heavily, because in the long run, it will sooner or later return to zero. You may also hear that some Kols on the Internet have made a lot of money, but few people will confess their loss experience. Because most of the time these are just means to stimulate users to speculate. If they are really that good, they would have been famous in history long ago. Do they still need to call you to get on board every day when they are financially free?
Once you understand the survivor bias, you will realize that the real situation of speculative gambling is ten thousand times more cruel than what Baylor said. The losers who are remembered by everyone are no longer the real losers. The real losers will not leave any trace at all, and such people are the vast majority.
When we face any investment and speculation issues, we should remain humble and respectful, and not make rash judgments and think that what we see is all. When facing success, failure and the future, we should be more sober and often remind ourselves that what we see is only the "survivor's story". I hope this will be helpful to you.
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