Last weekend, my family and I met in Louisville, Kentucky to go to the Kentucky Derby. The first time I ever saw the Derby, I was in my (great) Uncle Dave’s house in Three Rivers, Michigan. It was 1974. My father spent middle school and high school in Three Rivers and a large bulk of his family lived there. We’d go up every year for a family reunion and this year it was the first Saturday in May.
Cannonade won the 100th running of the Derby that year and as I recall it was a bit of an upset. I was turning 12 on May 8th and the Derby was on May 4th. This year I turned 60.
It was nice to be in Louisville and see that event up close and in person. Louisville is an extremely small town so it was overwhelmed by the Derby. But, I got to go to the Louisville Slugger Museum and did a tour of Old Forester which was fun.
Notice which ballpark is featured at the Louisville Slugger Museum. It’s the best ballpark in the majors.
Jackie Robinson’s bat. I got to hold Babe Ruth’s bat which was pretty cool.
Tasting at Old Forester
This year was the 148th running and it was a historic upset. I am sure you know by now but an 80-1 shot came in.
What was interesting about it in the aftermath to me was two things. First, the announcer calling the race couldn’t get out of the way of his own confirmation bias.
Here is the whole race. The only time he mentions the winner before the last strides are when it gets in the post and a short mention in the backstretch.
You can’t blame him. All week the horses that finished second and third were the current thing. I don’t think anyone that had knowledge of horse racing would have called the race any differently.
But, it’s a small illustration in confirmation bias.
The other interesting thing to me about the announcer is at the end when he realized what was happening, he self-corrected as fast as he could. He is very knowledgeable about racing and racing history since at the moment he said it was the longest shot ever to come in-which is true since 1913. He didn’t have to think about it and I doubt by the way he delivered it a producer whispered it in his ear.
The other thing that was interesting was betting. I know virtually nothing about betting horses. Nothing. They run. There are odds. You bet them. My friend that used to entertain whales at casinos said that if you really want to lose a lot of money bet the ponies.
I tried to educate myself as best as I could prior to the race to be “smart”. I looked at the odds of horses, but figured I could get around trying to figure that out by looking at the probability of post positions finishing in the money and formulating a betting strategy around that.
Interestingly, the race in 1974 was the biggest Derby field in history and they haven’t gotten any smaller since. If you read old articles about it, jockeys back then were grousing about the size of the field.
I figured post positions 6-10 had the best chance of coming in the money. It turned out, that some of the “best” horses were in those posts. I bet a trifecta box so that it wouldn’t matter who came in what order as long as it was them. My son-in-law had a betting strategy and so did my eldest daughter’s boyfriend.
Seems logical right? Only one of us in the crowd made money.
My eldest daughter bet the longshot. She felt sorry no one was betting on it. She bet in the moment, just like the announcer finally was at the end of the race.
Post-race, it was obvious. Accounting is always obvious. Asset bubbles are seen in the rearview mirror, but not before they pop.
Here we were trying to act like serious horseplayers when we weren’t serious horseplayers. We all were smart and understood math, probability, and statistics. We know how to create edge for ourselves.
Yet, we truly weren’t smart in this sort of thing so why not just throw caution to the wind and bet the longshot? What’s the worst that could happen-you lose? Turns out we lost anyway. We weren’t in the moment, or flow, but were trying to be. We were spinning our logical webs and getting stuck in them.
I think this is a good metaphor for how society is working today.
Yesterday, celebrity chef Mario Batali was acquitted of sex harassment and assault. Since he was accused, the MeToo movement crucified him publicly. He lost his business and career. He lost endorsements. Society never presumes innocence until proven guilty anymore. Imagine being John Addams defending the British soldiers back in pre-Revolutionary times. Ha, no way.
Of course, those proponents of the MeToo movement think it’s okay. Their point was made. Pardon the death and destruction we caused to make it. The same for Black Lives Matter or any of the other causes. We are seeing it now with abortion protests.
It’s okay to protest in front of a judge’s private home, as long as it’s the right cause and the right judge. Of course, in my old hometown of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot banned people from protesting outside her home. Then, a few days ago she called for violence against pro-life people. Meanwhile in Chicago last night a few blocks from where I used to live, here was the scene.
The Latin School of Chicago is right on that corner. Tuition is close to $40k per year.
The simple fact is there isn’t that much discrimination in our society today but social media allows a minority portion of crazies to megaphone about it, and because of confirmation biases it spreads without question.
Smart people are figuring out all kinds of solutions to problems. They are elites. They are so intelligent we can’t even question them or confront them. Their closed networks are riddled with confirmation bias. But, they aren’t in the moment. They’d never go to the Derby and bet the longshot because it's so pedestrian and declasse. So far when you poke your head up out of your hole, they are losers.
Name something they have fixed. I am waiting. I will list a few.
Covid? Nope. They actually blew it and made it worse.
Global Warming? Nope. They actually are making it worse.
Poverty? Nope. They are increasing poverty with their policies.
Education? Nope. Public government-run education is abysmal.
Homelessness? Nope. Increasing.
I think we have a lot of people who are trying to educate themselves on problems that they really don’t know much about, and more importantly, don’t have the right framing at all on how to solve them.
Pete Buttigieg is a case and point. I am sure Mayor Pete is a book smart guy. But, he doesn’t know shit from Shinola when it comes to real-world transportation, supply chains, and the like. He doesn’t know how things work. Yet, he’s in charge of it and now we have a shortage of baby food in the US. Ports are backed up. Trains don’t run on time and there is a shortage of truck drivers.
If Mayor Pete had the correct framing, he’d solve all these problems differently. But none of these people have the correct framing. Others in the limelight like Bill Gates are engineers.
Point it out, point out some alternative that might work and you are a heretic. Or, you don’t have the necessities as Al Campanis said to participate in the discussion. If you think I am drawing a direct line between our leaders and Al, you would be correct. Their attitudes are one and the same.
Engineers solve problems but the problems they solve are finite and have lots of constraints around them. Engineers don’t generally like free markets because there are so many variables and inconsistencies when it comes to them. Free to choose and make your own decision means making mistakes and sometimes making the wrong choice. That isn’t a part of their world.
Social media allows the crazies to raise the stakes so high that all choices become binary and any mistake is fatal. There are no continuums and no compromises.
I was reminded of that when I looked at gas prices and then heard the Biden Administration was canceling all of the leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
What do you think inflation and the price of gas will do now?
https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/producer-price-index-inflation-wholesale-prices-biden-administration/2022/05/12/id/1069566/ Wholesale prices rise 11% in April alone.