A random strolling fool reviews the book
What kind of people are probabilistic, Just Invert, what kind of people are not probabilistic:
When passing the lottery booths, you will think of the people who buy the lottery: how can you be sure that you will be lucky, knowing that every time you buy the lottery, a large part of the money is probably contributed to the lottery operator's base of the lottery.
Those who buy and sell short-term stocks or stock-type funds: Overall, the short-term stock market is a win-lose zero-sum game, minus transaction costs such as fund management fees and capital gains tax, and everyone is likely to be a loser.
People who turn red lights, people who go to dangerous workshops without a helmet, people who drive without seat belts.
Is it because you don't understand probability, or because you know and believe that your intelligence can cover the probability loss, or is it just luck?
This is the first type of non-probabilityist, a person who does not understand or who knows probabilities but who will be better off betting on their luck. Although widely available, most people with basic common sense, or those with a basic education in mathematics, can basically avoid making these mistakes.
The second type of non-probabilityist is more subtle and extreme: those who are happy and successful believe that their success is due to their own strength, not to the good fortune that history and the environment give them, and not only to themselves, but also to society as a whole.
The consequence of the self-concept of the successful person is that he is disfigured, boastful, as if he does not know anything, believing that he is able to do not only what he is doing now, but also many other things, until reality tells him that someone is stronger than him (in fact, it is better luck). The consequence of the social mass believing that the success of the successful person is due to strength rather than luck is simply to summarize the laws of success, blindly study and worship the successful person, waste a lot of time and energy on imitating others without results, and ultimately create a huge waste of money for the whole society.
The second type of probabilisticists mistook good luck ("non-sustainable small-probability events") for power ("sustainable inevitable events") and obtained the law of things by simply deducing without deeply comprehensive deductions, ignoring the laws of probability and ultimately punishing those who are punished by the laws of probability.
The third category of non-probabilityists are those who are industrious, who invest their time and energy averagely or as needed in every thing that rushes to them, each thing without wanting to disappoint others or themselves, sometimes because their energetic or jealous friends will pursue excellence in many aspects. Because of their egalitarian thinking and behavior, they often end up being among the broadest commoners in society, although some of them are geniuses and could be less mediocre.
They are all good people in the traditional sense, and nothing could have been better, but there is another kind of person who is more commendable: they are particularly patient, almost lazy, to the point of being quite extravagant in many things; they are particularly focused, almost fanatical, to the point of often making their friends think they are particularly uninteresting; they often think about the present with a penetrating eye to history and the future instead of believing that the current trend will last forever; they also often do the opposite of the trend, so that everyone chases them and gives up, and what everyone spits on them they treasure; they invest almost all their energy in the most important things of the moment, and then accumulate and wait until the next opportunity comes.
These are the three types of non-probabilityists, the opposite of true probabilityists: Counting, not Gambling; fearing probability, not superstitious strength; waiting for big opportunities and betting heavily when the opportunity comes, rather than investing on any opportunity at all.
1.1. God is always a monkey
Einstein once expressed his disagreement with quantum mechanics in terms of the harmony and beauty of the universe: "God never quarrels, and the laws of all matter, including the microscopic particles, can be described with certainty by the laws of physics - not precisely because we don't know enough about them".
However, both experiment and theory prove that Einstein was wrong on this point, that the operation of all objects, including the microscopic particle, is affected from time to time by infinite random variables and its own random motion, thus presenting a future uncertain state.
The caterpillar is in a state of uncertainty about life and death, and so are we all.
God is a jerk: people are born unequal, and all we can do is acknowledge these natural inequalities and soften the humanitarian tragedy caused by these inequalities through man-made policies.
God is a jack of all trades: each person's talents are randomly distributed, and all we can do is go long and short, investing as much as we can in what we do best.
God is a joke: all the worst things happen to everyone with the same probability, and not just by chance, so when you are in a situation that is even worse, be fearful and not panicky.
God is a jackass: opportunities don't happen every day, they don't happen everywhere, have enough patience to wait and look, and once you find them, invest in a potentially once-in-a-lifetime attitude (especially when choosing a life partner).
2.2. Nonlinear asymmetry of the world
The last grain of sand causes the whole pile of sand to collapse, the first place's salary is several hundred times that of the second place, 99.99 degrees is water, 100.1 degrees is air, the winner enjoys everything, the loser leaves the stage, a spacecraft with tens of thousands of parts explodes because of a small piece of damage, the pain of losing money is four times the joy of making money, and more romantic experiences can not prevent a marriage from breaking up because of an extreme domestic violence.
Probabilityists value critical points, knowing that the states on either side of the critical point are very different, and do not allow themselves to get lost in the slow development and change until they are awakened by the critical event. They anticipate what might happen when the critical point arrives, and they prepare a plan, and for those things whose consequences are dire to the point of being unacceptable, they choose to leave the game early.
Probabilityists value asymmetry, are aware of the asymmetry of positive and negative in a thing, are aware that a thing needs many necessary conditions to succeed, and to mess it up it only needs one simple sufficient condition; they know that to increase the probability of a thing succeeding, it is first necessary to reduce the probability of its failure, and because the latter is more obvious and simple, investing time and energy in the latter has a higher rate of return; in addition, they understand for nonlinearity that success is not a big deal, and failure is near the critical point, and once a thing encounters some attack that makes it more critical, the losses will be quite dire.
Probability theists fear the zero-factor hypothesis because they know that no matter how small the probability, the consequences are so dire that they can't do anything that would make them zero.
Probabilityists think in reverse, they ask why they succeed before they ask themselves why they fail, they think about failure before success, and they value avoiding failure over achieving success.
3.3.Summing under histories
The fortune of a millionaire who won the sports lottery is different from the fortune of a millionaire who won the lottery in the eyes of the probabilityists, the fortune of a second generation rich who won the lottery in the eyes of the probabilityists, and the fortune of a young talented young man who started a family with no money is also different from the fortune of the probabilityists, some people who get to the top by chance factors are at risk in the eyes of the probabilityists.
Probability theorists think about the probability component of each event and apply it to summarize it throughout history, including the future, and judge and live according to the results of the summarization.
Probabilityists, who value historical fiction (if history had presented itself otherwise), do not use heroes of fortune-telling to judge past historical events and historical figures, and to guide judgments and decisions in the present.
Probability theorists use the Monte Carlo method to simulate various forms of the future and to construct Noah's Ark in advance of a possible future flood, where they make judgments and decisions before they decide what to do once they have made a wrong judgment.
If they live happily because of good fortune, they are grateful for it and repay his good fortune in various ways, even though he knows that his future good fortune has nothing to do with his present reward society.
4.4. An open mind
Probabilityists are Populists, Montessori skeptics, who fear the truth but do not superstitiously believe the truth, believing that every truth and judgment is not forever right, but is a temporary state waiting to be proven wrong.
They also often have bold judgments that are different from those of authority and popularity, which differ in that they do not spend too much time searching for evidence to reinforce their own correctness, but instead engage in ruthless self-criticism, in such cruel criticism, on the one hand, to reduce the probability of their own mistakes, and on the other hand, to strive to react faster and less hurt when the reality proves that he is wrong.
They do this because they know that people who are obsessed with a belief and are unwilling to change their belief no matter what happens, will continually anesthetize themselves in thought and action until they finally repent, and these people have probably already entered a state of failure in the first place.
They have an open mind for a moment to accept the denial of reality, the denial of others and the denial of themselves.
Human beings are not born as probability theorists.
The psychologist Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for discovering that people are generally unable to adequately analyze environments that involve economic judgment and probability judgment. In such environments, people make judgments based on certain shortcuts or principles, which sometimes have systemic deviations from the theory of expected utility maximization.
Evolution has given us a non-probability brain, which tends to take shortcuts, to simply deduce laws, to gamble bravely, which is the best strategy our ancestors used in dangerous environments: to react too slowly, to react too quickly, to mess up, to survive.
So it's counter-intuitive and not easy to be a probabilist, and it's not yet known if investing time in it is worth more than investing it in something else, and maybe the beast has already run over you in your quiet calculations.
God is unfair: In probability, only a few people have the talent to be a probabilist, and for most people, obeying the law of probability and being a random walker is perhaps the best survival strategy.
For a small number of prospective probability theorists, this homework is also a lifetime task, but the rewards will occasionally show up in the minds of those who try to soothe, even without soothing, and the homework itself is a fun game of life, what not to do?
A mathematician learns that the probability of a bomb on an airplane is one in a million, and he never takes a plane because the probability is greater than his willingness to risk his life for it. However, one day his friend discovers that he is flying to attend an academic conference and asks him: "Aren't you afraid of a bomb on an airplane?"
I thank God for letting me read this book, and I thank Taleb for letting me understand for the first time the depth and practicality of probability.
God bless and wish us luck.
This is a photo taken in Shanghai on October 19, 2014.
Written by Dong Zhenqing Copyright belongs to the author Adapted from the book