Current trends and recent history can also be dangerously misleading. Taleb uses the example of the Thanksgiving turkey that is being fattened up for slaughter. As the turkey sees it, daily experience reinforces the image of the butcher as a benefactor who can be counted on to provide delightful delicacies on a daily basis — a good friend — right up until the day when the butcher reveals his true intentions. For the turkey the final day of reckoning is a personal black swan event. Leading up to the finale, the turkey clearly misinterprets what is happening around it.
“It is not a good idea to be a turkey,” Taleb said, but he adds that statistics and numbers often turn us into our own version of the proverbial turkey. “When you have numbers, you tend to take greater risks, even when the numbers are totally random.”
Our story is similar, but notes that sometimes the alert and quick thinking can avoid their fate. But not if you are a chicken:
For those who cannot see the scan:
It was Thanksgiving Day. The turkey was so excited until the farmer came to get him. “Uh-oh!” he said and he…Lookt at the ax in the farmers hand and ran away. He ran in to the woods the farmr was rite behinde him. Wate the farmr side you can come to Thanksgiving dinr with us and weer having chicin not turkey.
Or if you take out the 1st grade learning to read-write-spell phonetics- I already took out the accidentally flipped letters:Looked at the axe in the farmers hand and ran away. He ran into the woods. The farmer was right behind him. “Wait!” Said the farmer, “ You can come to Thanksgiving dinner with us, we are having chicken, not Turkey!
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