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An Indian chief was asked by his tribe, "Winter is coming, what should we do?" He told them to collect firewood. When they brought that back they asked, "Is t

An Indian chief was asked by his tribe, "Winter is coming, what should we do?" He told them to collect firewood. When they brought that back they asked, "Is this enough?" The chief had forgotten the wisdom of his ancestors so he called the weather service. "Is it going to be cold this winter?" he asked. "Yes!" they told him. So he instructed his tribe to collect more firewood. When they asked again "Is this enough?" He called up the weather service. "So when you say it is going to be cold, exactly how cold?" They told him "All indications are pointing to a very cold winter." He told his tribe to collect even more firewood. When they asked yet again if it was enough, he called the weather service again. "Can you tell me how you know this winter will be so cold?" They told him "It's got to be. The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
This reminds me of an actual story about book that was being priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars (I looked for a link to this story but couldn't find it). The gist was that a feedback loop from two online book sellers, neither of which had a copy of the book. They automated the pricing such it was based on the other's listing plus a small markup; the idea being that if someone wanted this book, they could buy it from the other seller, add the markup and pass it on the customer. But since both were doing this, one would see the price add a markup and set it as their price. After a while, the other would then see this price and do the same thing. Over time the price just grew and grew.