Nothing In Life Is Quite As Important

Doubts Are Suppressed By Groups... But Remember That The Internal Incentives That Shape How The Group Perceives Risks And Rewards May Be Very Different From The Reality Of The Risks And Rewards In The External Marketplace. Those Incentives Can Distort Risk Perception.

The Brains Of Humans Contain A Mechanism That Is Designed To Give Priority To Bad News.

I Have Always Emphasized The Willingness To Discard.

However, Optimism Is Highly Valued, Socially And In The Market; People And Firms Reward The Providers Of Dangerously Misleading Information More Than They Reward Truth Tellers. One Of The Lessons Of The Financial Crisis That Led To The Great Recession Is That There Are Periods In Which Competition, Among Experts And Among Organizations, Creates Powerful Forces That Favor A Collective Blindness To Risk And Uncertainty.

Our Comforting Conviction That The World Makes Sense Rests On A Secure Foundation: Our Almost Unlimited Ability To Ignore Our Ignorance.