Unit 3 · Level 1 · The narrative trap
Review: the trap, mapped
Stories move money because they're contagious, not because they're true. Guru records are survivorship artifacts: the losers deleted. Feeds rank engagement, never accuracy, and influencers get paid whether or not you do. The antidote to all of it: base rates. Ask how the whole cohort did before you believe the hero of one story.
Free to play. No ads, no token, no account needed to start.
What you get asked
Match each trap to its truth
Three traps and one tool. The tool's job is to interrupt the story before the story reaches your wallet.
10,000 accounts each make 4 market calls by coin flip. Roughly how many end up with perfect records?
10,000 ÷ 2⁴ ≈ 625 flawless 'prophets' by pure luck. Now recall how many prediction accounts exist online.
Before believing a success story, ask what happened to the whole ___.
One winner is a story; the cohort is the statistic. Survivorship bias is precisely the gap between those two.
An account posts only winning screenshots plus a referral link. Your read?
Curated wins plus a payment link is a business, not a track record. The Kardashian settlement showed even the biggest names play this game.
The narrative-proof decision habit from this unit:
Outside view first, inside view second, and only with receipts. Stories are for campfires; cohorts are for capital. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Stories, gurus, and viral feeds: how a good tale empties a portfolio.