Outcomes and Causes
Anne Duke wrote this book called Thinking in Bets , that made me look at the phrase “Wanna bet?” in a very different way: “Suddenly, you’re not so sure… Ideally it triggers us to vet our belief.” How do I know this? What is the reliability of my source? Is my information upto date? What could I be missing?... Here’s how we’re wired to form our beliefs: (1) Hear something, (2) Believe it by default (unless it’s outrageous or contradicts what we already believe), (3) Only occasionally, check whether it is true or not: “`Wanna bet?’ triggers us to engage in that third step that we only sometimes get to.” Duke is a (very good) poker player, an area where betting is, er, the whole point of the game. The feedback in poker is not like physics or chess. You could make all the right moves and still lose. There’s luck involved, there are factors you weren’t aware of, a beginner could beat a master… just like life. This makes it very hard to know what to lea...