I think the answer is, beforehand there are too many contingencies and it seems like a waste in mental effort to consider them all.
Consider the stock example, which is quite simple. I buy a share at $100. I don't think it's so simple that I decide in advance I'm going to sell if it drops below $80. What if, in one day, it drops to $83, and I don't have access to a broker except to sell it at the end of the next day? What if the stock is doing well, and then there's a rumor that quickly sends it down to $80? What if I happen to have good reason to thin...
Mark Cuban assumes you and the seller are the only people in the market. If there are lots of traders, then the trade price is set by some average assessment of the stock value. Cuban also assumes that you want to buy the stock because you think it's undervalued, and the seller because he thinks its overvalued. But maybe the seller just needs cash, or you just want to invest.
A paradox of economic equilibrium theory is you shouldn't have to do any research: the "invisible hand" of free market should guide all prices to their correct value. Th...
I feel for you. I was raised Catholic and was quite religious up to and through high school (people considered me "mature" in faith). As I matured intellectually, my faith became increasingly abstract, until at some point in college I realized it would all be simpler if Christianity were basically false. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, once you take seriously the idea that a religion is false, faith quickly becomes silly and there's no going back.
I am still struggling with how to inform those around me of my changed perspective. My ...
Nice post. I agree very much. This simple observation goes far to explain trends in how beliefs about religion, politics, race, and gender are handed down from parents to children.
It took me all the way up to graduate school to break the molds of childhood on my political and religious beliefs -- and I was helped by a number of factors that most people don't experience: living away from where I grew up for many years, having unpleasant childhood experiences that I prefer to separate myself from, and, if I may say so, being a very intelligent and critical thinker, at least by all the standard measures.