4 ms·

So, if someone with Newton’s caliber gets suckered into losing a lot of money in a market bubble (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company https://en.m

by Jun8 3y ago

So, if someone with Newton’s caliber gets suckered into losing a lot of money in a market bubble (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company, note that it was a slave trading company), what hope is there for the rest of us?

callwhendone 3y ago
[flagged]
autoexec 3y ago
It's like those optical illusions that you can't stop seeing even through you know your eyes are lying to you. Our brains are just wired to leave us vulnerable to certain cognitive biases and errors and while we can try to increase our awareness of those vulnerabilities we can't get rid of them. To make it worse, scammers and corporations spend massive amounts of time/money researching how to best exploit those weaknesses and so the moment our guard is down any one of us could fall for one of their traps. We're all basically one bad day away from being suckered into losing money on something. Nobody can be hypervigilant all the time and a person like Newton probably had a lot on his mind.
- psychoslave 3y ago
  There is a great solution for this. Just neither become possessor of any large amount of wealth.
kurthr 3y ago
Well, he was also a lifelong celibate.
- dustypotato 3y ago
  And?
  - tgv 3y ago
    I suppose you're to substitute that. > So, if someone with Newton’s caliber can't get laid, what hope is there for the rest of us? Which is obviously false.
    - kurthr 3y ago
      It's not that he was an InCel. He was proud of his celibacy.
- nickkell 3y ago
  The source of all his power.
darkerside 3y ago
Maybe just because you're smart about some things doesn't mean you know everything?
emmelaich 3y ago
It is notable that Newton had no experience of trading companies. He was good at things he dealt with personally. Nullius in verba and all that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 3y ago
I'm reminded of Michael Larson, the guy who successfully hacked Press Your Luck, racked up over $110,000 while on the show, and then lost it all in bad real estate deals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson If you find yourself in a lot of money, your best bet is a diversified portfolio of stable, slow-earning assets. Newton was brilliant, but not immune to the tantalizing excitement of "striking it rich" with a big investment. You might say... he pressed his luck.
cultureswitch 3y ago
Success in speculative enterprises is only remotely correlated with intelligence, or even competence. I like the quote from the "Margin Call" movie. It's about hearing the music stop. That is, mostly just blind luck.

by Jun8 3y ago

callwhendone 3y ago

[flagged]

autoexec 3y ago

It's like those optical illusions that you can't stop seeing even through you know your eyes are lying to you. Our brains are just wired to leave us vulnerable to certain cognitive biases and errors and while we can try to increase our awareness of those vulnerabilities we can't get rid of them. To make it worse, scammers and corporations spend massive amounts of time/money researching how to best exploit those weaknesses and so the moment our guard is down any one of us could fall for one of their traps. We're all basically one bad day away from being suckered into losing money on something. Nobody can be hypervigilant all the time and a person like Newton probably had a lot on his mind.

psychoslave 3y ago
There is a great solution for this. Just neither become possessor of any large amount of wealth.

kurthr 3y ago

Well, he was also a lifelong celibate.

dustypotato 3y ago
And?
- tgv 3y ago
  I suppose you're to substitute that. > So, if someone with Newton’s caliber can't get laid, what hope is there for the rest of us? Which is obviously false.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    It's not that he was an InCel. He was proud of his celibacy.
nickkell 3y ago
The source of all his power.

darkerside 3y ago

Maybe just because you're smart about some things doesn't mean you know everything?

emmelaich 3y ago

It is notable that Newton had no experience of trading companies. He was good at things he dealt with personally. Nullius in verba and all that.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 3y ago

I'm reminded of Michael Larson, the guy who successfully hacked Press Your Luck, racked up over $110,000 while on the show, and then lost it all in bad real estate deals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson If you find yourself in a lot of money, your best bet is a diversified portfolio of stable, slow-earning assets. Newton was brilliant, but not immune to the tantalizing excitement of "striking it rich" with a big investment. You might say... he pressed his luck.

cultureswitch 3y ago

Success in speculative enterprises is only remotely correlated with intelligence, or even competence. I like the quote from the "Margin Call" movie. It's about hearing the music stop. That is, mostly just blind luck.