Focusing on the Ordinary

From http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/focus-on-ordinary.html

"A common idea is that outliers are more important than averages, as this is the them of Taleb's Black Swan, or Gladwell's Outliers. Predicting one great outlier is worth predicting many ordinary outcomes, so on one hand it seems like an optimal focus. Also, the outliers should highlight the essence of something. A stock that has risen 10 fold, or a great athlete, supposedly lays bare the essence of its greatness.

But I think we forget how biased our view is on exceptional events and people. We watch sports and learn about Usain Bolt, a most unusual man. Or my kids read the Guiness Book of World Records, containing stories about 1200 lb men and giant frogs. News is biased towards the exceptional, it takes no effort to emphasize it. In fact, it takes effort to see the ordinary. It's too bad people think of heroes as those who, for a brief moment, offered their life in some battle or harrowing situation, compared to the much more common heroism of providing one's family, not complaining, and being charitable to friends and neighbors, for decades."

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