simplicio comments on The best 15 words - Less Wrong

12 Post author: apophenia 03 October 2013 09:08AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (383)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: simplicio 07 October 2013 04:02:00PM *  3 points [-]

The Black Swan:

Don't pick up pennies in front of a steamroller. Especially if the guy encouraging you to do it is taking a cut of the pennies but not spending any time in front of the steamroller himself.

Comment author: simplicio 07 October 2013 04:13:49PM 2 points [-]

For an example from real life, check out page 9 of this document for a fund my investment advisor wanted me to invest in:

"We got a positive number of pennies almost every day for several years!"

(NB: I'm not making a global judgment about this fund, just about the inherent anti-epistemology of obsessing over day to day "volatility".)