Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dvdw© who wrote (715)	5/5/2003 5:30:04 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4912

Z. Sitchin depicts golds history in its most original and imaginative context! He reasoned from deciphering pre Babylonia texts that the need for gold was behind the motivation for the creation of man. OK, i looked around for information on Mr. Sitchin and was pleased to find an article about him on my favorite debunking site: skepdic.com "Zecharia Sitchin, along with Erich von Däniken and Immanuel Velikovsky, make up the holy trinity of pseudohistorians. Each begins with the assumption that ancient myths are not myths but historical and scientific texts. Sitchin's claim to fame is announcing that he alone correctly reads ancient Sumerian clay tablets. All other scholars have misread these tablets which, according to Sitchin, reveal that gods from another planet (Niburu, which orbits our Sun every 3,600 years) arrived on Earth some 450,000 years ago and created humans by genetic engineering of female apes." and so on. very amusing reading for those of a rational persuasion (as are many articles at the skepdic site). i readily admit that my hypotheses regarding gold and other asset classes may turn out to be incorrect. but i highly doubt the reason will be that "gods from Nuburu, which orbits our Sun every 3,600 years, arrived on Earth some 450,000 years ago and created humans by genetic engineering of female apes." here's another debunking of Sitchin by a scholar with a doctorate in the languages Sitchin claims to translate: facadenovel.com Michael Cremo in "Hidden Archeology" shows perfect, but large Steel ball bearings dated from approx. 400,000 years ago that sounds like a hilarious book. i would read it for laughs but not knowledge. i found a review of it... "Cremo and Thompson's claim that anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens have been around for hundreds of millions of years is an outrageous notion. Accepting that there is a place in science for seemingly outrageous hypotheses (cf. Davis, 1926) there is no justification for the sort of sloppy rehashing of canards, hoaxes, red herrings, half-truths and fantasies Cremo and Thompson offer in the service of a religious ideology." skeptic.com

To: dvdw© who wrote (715)	5/5/2003 5:58:08 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 4912

one more thingy... Z. Sitchin depicts golds history in its most original and imaginative context! i should clarify what i meant when i said the market lacks imagination. i didn't mean more people should make up theories about extraterrestrials. i was referring to the fat tails of return distributions, which are chronically underestimated by the market. the market relies on a steady state, so outlier returns and events are underpriced. this situation was the subject of Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. the market is Niederhoffer selling thin tails where imagination would show fat tails. Taleb is the Cheshire Cat sitting out on the fat tail, buying the OTM calls and puts for nickels and dimes, losing money by dribs and drabs and holding his positions because he knows the frequency of unexpected occurrences is itself unexpectedly high. Niederhoffer gets rich slowly and goes bankrupt quickly. Taleb gets poor slowly and hits the jackpot when it's least expected. this is the distinction between Imagination Haves and Have Nots. here's what i wrote about imagination a couple years ago, when again i think the meaning of the term may have been misunderstood by some... #reply-16164293 To:Jay Chen who wrote (6524) From: Darfot Thursday, Aug 2, 2001 11:16 PM View Replies (5) \| Respond to of 33054 the problem is, investors in the aggregate lack imagination. that is, the world is seen only as a line of time unfolding in connected dots--there is no thought space for discontinuities. lack of imagination, and lack of respect for fat tails, is what killed LTCM and has killed the lemmings of the past, present and future. step back and look at the past. imagine yourself as an investor in the 20s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, and so on. at each inflection point, if you held onto the past--if you lacked the will to imagine Something Unknown (not necessarily its particulars, except the particular possibility that it might exist)--you would have fought the last war and run down the same road, assuming it went on forever. the drunken road of 90% margin in 1929. the green road of Savings Bonds in the early 50s. the yellow brick road of gold in the 70s and the paydirt of Japanese real estate in the 80s...each time you would follow the mirage of continuity over a cliff and before you know it, you have a hard landing on the rocky shoals of Dead Lemmings Past... why should today be any different? there is a road to riches out there being trudged by millions. and it's a lie.