Bertrand Russell’s chicken
Sunday, August 5th, 2007
Taleb tells the story of a chicken (today, in the US, we would use a turkey), which for a thousand days is fed and cared for by humans. Until that thousand-and-one day, which is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Ha ! All the history observed by that chicken or turkey, is for naught. The entire performance over a thousand days suddenly gets sidetracked by a surprising event. Now if you were the farmer, you know this is going to happen.
The entire past history of behavior, is absolutely useless in dealing with this type of event, unless you can understand the motive of the farmer. If you were a really smart turkey, you figure this out and arrange to be the one pardoned by the Prez to live out your life away from the hatchet.
9/11 could be seen as Thanksgiving.
Black Monday, October 19th, 1987, could be seen as the same type of event.
So could the sinking of the Titanic.
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