June 30, 2020

Why We’re Blind to Probability

Most people get that certainties are rare, and the best you can do is make decisions where the odds are in your favor. They understand you can be smart and end up wrong, or dumb and end up right, because that’s how luck and risk work.

But almost no one actually uses probability in the real world, especially when judging others’ success.

Most of what people care about is, “Were you right or wrong?”

Probability is about nuance and gradation. But in the real world people pay attention to black and white.

If you said something will happen and it happens, you were right.

If you said it will happen and it doesn’t, you’re wrong.

That’s how people think, because it doesn’t take much effort to think it.



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