www.sixfingeredman.net
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20.02

This book sounds pretty interesting -- it sparked a lot of discussion on whether the conservative viewpoint that "people get what they deserve" is true. While I agree that the situation is more complex than all-luck or all-effort, one musn't forget that statistics don't dictate reality, they describe it.

He says: "So it's all a game of numbers: out of 10,000 traders, a few are statistically bound to be successful, even if they are nothing more than lucky idiots. The fact that they succeeded does not mean anything. It doesn't mean that they are bad traders, but it doesn't mean that they are good traders either, because on average somebody had to succeed."

Well, no, that's not true -- that statistic may be another way of saying that just a few out of every 10,000 traders are really good traders. The numbers don't force a few idiots to succeed just to fulfill the statistic. Likewise, one could say that you have a 5% chance of ending up just like that bum you just met, but no, you don't -- maybe 5% of the population are bums, but that doesn't say anything about why, whether these people are just lazy, or economic factors are keeping them from work, or maybe some of it is blind luck.

Redefining the back button -- this article is poorly written but it sounds to me like they're talking about Emacs' undo model versus vi's. In other words, is undo itself an undoable operation? Interesting.