Talks at Google

Ep143 - Leonard Mlodinow | The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

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Apr 30, 2021
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INSIGHT

Randomness Rules Our Lives

  • Randomness significantly influences our lives, often leading to misinterpretations of events.
  • We frequently create false narratives of causality, attributing outcomes to skill or intent when chance plays a larger role.
ANECDOTE

Lottery Winner's Fallacy

  • A man won the lottery with the number 48, attributing it to dreaming of the number 7 seven times (7x7=48).
  • This highlights our tendency to invent causal explanations, even if nonsensical, for random occurrences.
INSIGHT

Illusion of Causality

  • We often misattribute success to skill, overlooking the role of randomness, like in Bill Miller's 15-year streak.
  • Considering the large number of fund managers, such streaks are statistically likely to occur by chance alone.
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