VICIOUS REAL LIFE There are other aspects to the monkeys problem; in real life the other monkeys are not countable, let alone visible. They are hidden away, as one sees only the winners—it is natural for those who failed to vanish completely. Accordingly, one sees the survivors, and only the survivors, which imparts such a mistaken perception of the odds. We do not respond to probability, but to society’s assessment of it. As we saw with Nero Tulip, even people with training in probability respond unintelligently to social pressure.
