Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
The first book of the Bible explains what happens when we disobey a great
authority: we get ejected from paradise. This is also what less celestial authorities
would have us believe – political pundits, scientists, doctors, CEOs, economists,
government heads, sports commentators, consultants and stock market gurus.
Authorities pose two main problems to clear thinking: first, their track records
are often sobering. There are about one million trained economists on the planet,
and not one of them could accurately predict the timing of the 2008 financial crisis
(with the exception of Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb), let alone how the
collapse would play out, from the real-estate bubble bursting to credit default
swaps collapsing, right through to the full-blown economic crunch. Never has a
group of experts failed so spectacularly. The story from the medical world is much
the same: up until 1900 it was discernibly wiser for patients to avoid doctor’s
visits; too often the ‘treatment’ only worsened the illness, due to poor hygiene and
folk practices such as bloodletting.
Over the past decade, airlines have also learned the dangers of the authority
bias. In the old days, the captain was king. His commands were not to be
doubted. If a co-pilot suspected an oversight, he wouldn’t have dared to address it