The factory default settings of the human brain were essential in the past to secure our survival.
In modern times, however, that inner con man plays tricks on us that can end quite costly.
I blogged about our deficits in predicting the future the other day and mentioned not only our tendency to compare the present to the past, but also how we tend to get history wrong—by neglecting the impact that accidents and chance had on them. Isn’t our place in history today…
Here is a bit of philosophy to assist in rapidly finding someone (else) to blame : “Huey, Dewey and Louie. You stand accused of a grievous crime. What do you have to say for yourselves?” “Yes, I did it,” said Huey. “But it…
This bias might be at the root of all the other biases that very active traders “enjoy”. Yet, being right has very little to do with making money! The evidence is overwhelming that the more we trade, the worse we would do. That’s because most…
Have you ever asked yourself this: How can I control myself when I feel the irresistible need to break my rules about how to invest in the stock market? That question pertains to the “hot-cold-empathy gap”, where we say to ourselves in a calm…
Yes, that’s right, you have read the header correctly. Because if you know something, you can’t appreciate what it’s like not to know it. And this is when better-informed people encounter problems thinking about problems from the perspective of their less-informed…
This is the tendency to fail to incorporate prior known probabilities which are pertinent to the decision at hand. Caution: Don’t read on if you are 40 years of age and above! Here’s an interesting question for the rest of you: Why aren’t more young people…
Have you ever wondered why you can become revved up and an exuberant risk taker, when flying high, or hesitant and risk-adverse, when cowering from your losses in the stock market? We have the impression that it is our deliberative mind that makes the most important decisions in…
I am very glad that more and more of you are stopping by the Tacomob-website and I feel specially encouraged by all your positive E-mails. One of the more frequent questions asked has formed the header to this post and there are dozens of answers to…
Have you noticed that we are social creatures who devote a lot of our time to thinking about social ranking? And that a by-product of this obsession is a tendency to blindly trust the claims and ideas of people who rank…
I realise now that NOW is the only time that exists, although that truth about time took me a while to comprehend. Our life, you see, is about a series of moments in time, but we often live these moments hoping to improve a future moment—to have a better…