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…
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…
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 beg your pardon? Did you just answer with a Yes? That is great, because that proves that you are human and/or a human being. Did you know that the human being is the only animal that thinks about the future? We—human beings—think about the future…
Chapter 1: You are What You Think “You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you.” — Blaise Pascal We can’t change other people and our…
Did you know that it is the default settings of our brain that often drive us—despite past experiences—to do things that make no logical sense, though they make perfect emotional sense? That, however, does not make us completely irrational; it…