Quote from Fight Club

[Jaydee]

From Fight Club:

"On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero." - The Narrator (Edward Norton)

The above simply states that if we could never grow old (a long enough time line), we would still die because something would kill us out of chance (a black swan event, if you like). Maybe a car pile up on the M25 would finish us off at 900 years old or maybe a grand piano would fall from the sky, crushing us on our 485th birthday. Happy thoughts eh?

The point to this topic is, if we could live to trade forever, would each and every one of us blow up at some point along the time line? Surely, no matter how careful we are; no matter how much risk management we practice, chance will catch us out on the way and, therefore, we are all doomed to go bust at some point in the future?

Any thoughts?

 

[foredog]

Depends, if you're consistently taking out more than you need and so are not leaving all your money in your account then even if you blew what's in your account it wouldn't be your entire net worth. Does that count?

 

[Technically Fundamental]

You cant set a stop loss on piano falls

 

[fifty2aces]

There's a fairly reasonable chance that any given trade will be a loser.
There's much less chance that 10 trades in a row will be losers.
And 100 losers in a row is almost inconceivable
....
The chance of losing 1,000,000 trades is a row is immeasurably low, however if you take an infinite number of trades, it seems inevitable.

It's unlikely enough to ignore though, personally I'll be investing more effort in avoiding falling pianos.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Better quote from Fight Club: "Self-imprivement is masturbation. Now self-destruction..."

 

[new_trader]

From Fight Club:

"On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero." - The Narrator (Edward Norton)

The above simply states that if we could never grow old (a long enough time line), we would still die because something would kill us out of chance (a black swan event, if you like). Maybe a car pile up on the M25 would finish us off at 900 years old or maybe a grand piano would fall from the sky, crushing us on our 485th birthday. Happy thoughts eh?

The point to this topic is, if we could live to trade forever, would each and every one of us blow up at some point along the time line? Surely, no matter how careful we are; no matter how much risk management we practice, chance will catch us out on the way and, therefore, we are all doomed to go bust at some point in the future?

Any thoughts?

I interpreted that quote to mean that if you survive long enough you will eventually die of 'old age'...whatever that means exactly. I didn't think it was particularly philosophical in any way. No different to saying that saliva is poisonous but only if swallowed in small amounts over a very long period of time. I can't relate either of them to trading....I suppose my mouth does water when I see an opportunity for a profit.

 

[theSheik]

what a right load of old toss

live for today

you can't go wrong

 

[Adamus]

If you can only die by being flattened by a falling grand piano, you will die by being flattened by a falling grand piano.

 

[HaloTrader]

The nukes will kill us all anyway, so it doesn't even need to be a long time line.

 

[theSheik]

The nukes will kill us all anyway, so it doesn't even need to be a long time line.

my bet's on this thread doing the deed long before the nukes

 

[Gumping]

I think it means that we're doomed because ur all gay for discussing this and hence will not reproduce and humans will become extinct.