I just finished Fooled by Randomness, a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. For some reason I didn’t expect it to delve so deep into stock markets but I gained a lot of interesting perspectives on probability and the role of randomness.
It made me more critical of what I read in the media. Often scientific articles skew facts by reading data in a way that suits their topic.
“Expect the unexpected” is one takeaway from the book. For example, we always read that murderers “were nice people” or that the success rate of something is 98%, but don’t forget someone has to be in the 2%, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If you don’t see something, does it mean it doesn’t exist?
