I bought 'Fooled By Randomness' almost 8 years back from a shop in Bengaluru and it stayed in my bookshelf for those many years. This month i got a chance to read this book and i found it intriguing, confusing and radically important book in our chaotic world.
I found at times this book pretty boring and sometimes i felt that instead of giving 250 odd pages to it, the ideas could have been covered in less than 100 pages. The focal point of this book is about the role played by sheer random dice of fortune in our daily lives that we sometimes credit our skills and hard work. Nassim gives a large number of examples including the seminal example of infinite number of monkeys on infinite keyboards; there is a probability that some monkey will reproduce Iliad, Odyssey or even 'Fooled by randomness'.
Another concept though very common is about 'Hindsight bias'. A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point. Another linked concept is 'Survivorship bias' - We do not take account for losers in our sample size. The survivors path decide everything for make gurus though they might have been lucking in surviving.
In nutshell its a good book and should be read as it triggers good ideas in our brain. Sometimes or may be always its better to be a fooled by randomness. Sometimes it breaks the stalemate. In the end it is always a better practice to be a stoic and do not let randomness compromise your dignity.
Highly Recommended.
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