One of the more esoteric topics that fascinates me about the psychology of investing is whether our risk preferences are determined by our genes or our environment.
Klement: We are not slaves to our genes, we can achieve anything, if we just set our mind to it.
Me: *looks at expaneding waistline, looks at extra slice of cake, promises self not to eat more cake, eats more cake* *through mouthfull of cake, spraying crumbs onto phone screen* Yes, this guy's right
I know two male identical twins quite well who are about 35 years old. They lived together until they were at least 25 years old and always did the same job by sharing the activity (a commercial activity). Well, not only do they have two completely different personalities but also two opposite sexual orientations: one is married with children and heterosexual beyond any reasonable doubt, the other lives with a partner and has always had his orientation clear without any second thoughts. I can see it in two ways: free will exists and is the greatest force in the universe. Or, the complexity of the individual human being is so great that even living in a deterministic universe the so-called butterfly effect disrupts the attempts we make to predict human behavior. BUT… when we apply that same attempt to collective behaviors, the basic instincts prevail and certain dynamics become recurrent and manipulable. It’s like when you consider different time frames in financial markets. The individual represents the intraday in which the background noise prevails, in the long term (the collective consciousness) the fundamentals win. Sorry for the extreme simplification
Klement: We are not slaves to our genes, we can achieve anything, if we just set our mind to it.
Me: *looks at expaneding waistline, looks at extra slice of cake, promises self not to eat more cake, eats more cake* *through mouthfull of cake, spraying crumbs onto phone screen* Yes, this guy's right
I know two male identical twins quite well who are about 35 years old. They lived together until they were at least 25 years old and always did the same job by sharing the activity (a commercial activity). Well, not only do they have two completely different personalities but also two opposite sexual orientations: one is married with children and heterosexual beyond any reasonable doubt, the other lives with a partner and has always had his orientation clear without any second thoughts. I can see it in two ways: free will exists and is the greatest force in the universe. Or, the complexity of the individual human being is so great that even living in a deterministic universe the so-called butterfly effect disrupts the attempts we make to predict human behavior. BUT… when we apply that same attempt to collective behaviors, the basic instincts prevail and certain dynamics become recurrent and manipulable. It’s like when you consider different time frames in financial markets. The individual represents the intraday in which the background noise prevails, in the long term (the collective consciousness) the fundamentals win. Sorry for the extreme simplification