This chapter explores how human beings often underestimate the chances of rare events happening, using various historical and current examples to emphasize the importance of considering probabilities in decision-making processes.
My deepest forecasting belief is that you can better understand the future if you focus on the behaviors that never change instead of the events that might.
And those behaviors have a common denominator: They follow the path of least resistance of people trying to simplify a complex world into a few stories that make sense and make them feel good about themselves.
Simple stories, feel-good stories. Those are some of history’s most seductive beliefs, and they always will be.
Here are a few that stick out.