X-Message-Number: 13305
From: 
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:18:02 EST
Subject: sound bites

The interminable strategy discussions-including optimism vs. pessimism, 
research vs. recruitment, psychology of public relations, etc.--often hold 
(usually recycled) germs of truth, but also often obscure more than they 
reveal. In particular, they often push a single viewpoint as "the" key to 
life.

Psychology is not yet an exact science, and nobody is consistently good at 
creating or predicting markets. If you could do that, you would be a 
trillionaire before Bill Gates. Nobody even knows (consistently) which books 
will sell, or which actors will succeed, or which fashions will flourish.

We all know the chestnut that a butterfly, flapping its wings in Zimbabwe, 
might cause a hurricane in Vietnam. I don't believe that, but I do know that 
a simple rumor, or a remark of an often-wrong "analyst," can send a stock 
price, or a whole sector, or even the major indices on a wild round trip in a 
single day, even though nothing at all of real economic consequence has 
happened. And this in the face of the fact (or maybe because of the fact) 
that large numbers of extremely smart people are trying to impose order and 
behave rationally.

Does all this mean that strategizing is hopeless? Of course not. But it means 
you have to pay attention to details and at the same time keep the big 
picture in view.

In the markets, and in most areas of life, there are many approaches. Most of 
them succeed--sometimes. Most of them fail--sometimes. If YOU want to 
succeed, you must choose not the "best" strategy, but the best one that you 
are capable of implementing. Additionally, of course, you must gamble on 
guessing your capabilities correctly. 

At the same time, some will succeed through no merit, just luck. (If we of 
this generation make it, it will just be the luck of being born not quite too 
late, Omega Point aside.) Some will fail despite merit, or through having not 
quite the right kind of merit. But we can say some relevant things with 
considerable confidence:
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If you don't try, you are less likely to succeed. 

If you are pessimistic, you are less likely to try. 

If you are buried, you are less likely to survive. 

It usually helps to have more friends and fewer antagonists.   

For the optimists to be right, only one approach need work. For the 
pessimists to be right, every approach must fail. 

In the sweep of history, the can-do surprises have overwhelmed the can't-do 
surprises.

The universe has neither malice nor mercy; a miss is as good as a mile; one 
day too late and you could be gone forever.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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