Herd Defying.

People are social animals, and have powerful instincts urging them to “get along” and “go with the flow". People think inductively, as almost all people do. They assume that the people ahead of them know what they're doing, and thus rely on them to do the “thinking” for them.” This is how compression (outsizing risk) and major market tops/bottoms are formed: The last buyers/sellers -- the most buyers/sellers -- are buying/selling just because everyone else is.


We must think deductively. There is nothing to lose by going to the opposite. This is how some investors avoid major losses, by eventually going against the crowd and reducing risk despite the masses.

By definition, major social change is driven by individuals who go against the crowd. Cows are like us sometimes, like what we have been "conditioned" to think for more than 50 years in the dear land of ours. Everyone is depending on others to think for them and only few dares to break away from the mundane.

So the next time you feel that irresistible urge to get into something because everyone else is, please just stop and think for yourself. Be mindful - like what the Buddhists been practising all along. Think deductively: Put the facts together, as best you can, and draw some conclusions. Question every moves and be inqusitive.

It very well may be that everyone else is right (inductive thinking and empirical evidence certainly have validity), but there are times when making inductive assumptions can be disastrous.