today’s turkey got a quite surprise
I’ve just started reading Ken Davenport’s blog, and stumbled on his October 21 bet AGAINST a strike – $100 paying 10:1. He says “Why am I so confident? Because of a man named Mr Trocchio, my high school history teacher taught me that to determine the course of the future, you must look at the events of the past.” Because there’s been only two strikes since 1975, he says, there wouldn’t be a strike now.
Unfortunately Mr Trocchio cost Ken some money; the past is a dangerous way to predict the future.
Think about the turkey you ate today. To quote Nassim Taleb again “Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for his best interests’. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexepcted will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.” This is the “narrative fallacy”, creating a story so that an event seems to have a cause.
Unlike the poor turkey, the unexpected event is a producer’s friend. Tassim’s Black Swan ponders the impact of highly improbably events. On the dark side, think 9/11 or financial meltdowns that threaten the entire economy.
But the positive black swans are what I dream of, Mr Trocchio, megahit shows that no-one sees coming, like Blue Man Group, Stomp, Rent and Wicked.