Rationality Quotes December 2013

Cyan

Rationality quotes time!

The usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Rationality quotes time!

The usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote from Less Wrong itself, HPMoR, Eliezer Yudkowsky, or Robin Hanson. If you'd like to revive an old quote from one of those sources, please do so here.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I'd be interested in some guesstimations on how much luck it would take to be Warren Buffett, for example. Survivorship bias in finance is often employed as a just so story.

The question is: luck in what, specifically?

Luck in every single trade?

Luck in that first trade that made him big money?

Luck in being exposed to trade at such a young age?

Luck in being born at the right place, right time?

Luck in having a specific set of genes that, say, gives him a high intelligence?

If you say "all of the above", then being Warren Buffet is pure luck, and since there is only one Warren Buffet in 7 billion people, the maximum likelihood estimate for the probability of having enough luck to be Warren Buffet is about 1/7,000,000,00... (read more)

6James_Miller13y

Less than you think given that he was able to cheaply borrow money through his insurance company.

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Rationality Quotes December 2013

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Rationality Quotes December 2013

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