Suppose there is a fire in a nearby house. Suppose there are competent firefighters in your town: fast, professional, well-equipped. They are expected to arrive in 2–3 minutes. In that situation, unless something very extraordinary happens, it would indeed be an act of great arrogance and even utter insanity to go into the fire yourself in the hope of "rescuing" someone or something. The most likely outcome would be that you would find yourself among those who need to be rescued.

But the calculus changes drastically if the closest fire crew is 3 hours away and consists of drunk, unfit amateurs.

Or consider a child living in a big, happy, smart family. Imagine this child suddenly decides that his family may run out of money to the point where they won't have enough to eat. All reassurances from his parents don't work. The child doesn't believe in his parents' ability to reason, he makes his own calculations, and he strongly believes he is right and they are wrong. He is dead set on fixing the situation by doing day trading.

What is that if not going nuts? Would those be wrong who ridicule this child and his complete mischaracterization [...]

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First published:
March 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EAH6Y6y3CDi3uxMou/my-most-costly-delusion

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.