Bravery vs Playing safe - world belongs to the brave who take risks, or to those who avoid risks?

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This is an interesting question, because while Sun Tzu methods usually teach you to play safe, methods of "high risk high reward" and "some risk high reward" are actually much superior, and I will explain why.

So it comes down to this simple experiment.

Lets say that there is a sword.

Anyone who takes the sword has 99% chance of dying.

However, in case he doesnt die, he gets to rule the entire world and becomes invincible.

Now, Sun Tzu would say "Anyone who takes the sword will most likely die, and I will not take the sword, so I will play it safe and survive."

However, lets say there are 2000 people.

Now, the first 1000 decides to follow Sun Tzu and refuses to take sword.

However, the other 1000 plays a high risk high reward game.

They say "Each of us has only 1% chance of success. But if enough of us try, one will certainly succeed."

So the other 1000 each decide to take the sword. After 99 attemps, 99 people died. However, 100th one took the sword and didnt die. Now he rules the world and is invincible.

The point of this story is:

The group who followed Sun Tzu had no chance of becoming invincible, because they didnt want to take risk to take the sword.

However, the other group, who risked, had over 99% chance to become invincible, as each individial had 1% chance and there were 1000 of them. 

So in the end, even high risk of failure carries certain rewards when enough attempts are made, so group which follows high risk high reward is going to be superior and rule over the group who follows Sun Tzu's safe way of playing.
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@Best.Korea
reducing risk is critical to long-term survival

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@3RU7AL
reducing risk is critical to long-term survival
Sometimes, yes, for an individual.

However, when it comes to technological and militant progress of society, society of individuals willing to take risks will almost always beat society where individuals play it safe, because those who play it safe will have very slow progress, where those who take risks will have high rewards.

Its kinda like this: those who dont take risks will never achieve any greatness.

Even animals in nature take great risks. For example, sometimes an animal endangers its own survival so that species as a whole has greater chance of survival.

Its one of those cases where survival of society comes in contradiction to survival of an individual, and society where all individuals play it safe will always be conquered by society in which individuals take "some risk, high reward" approach, or "high risk, high reward" approach.
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Trick people into  picking up the sword. 




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@Best.Korea
Sun Tzu (and Clausewitz) taught to apply rationality to warfare as science is the application of rationality to understand/predict phenomenon.

His conclusions cannot be accurately reduced to "play it safe".

More like "understand what's going on, then choose the highest reward for the lowest risk among your options"


Your scenario confuses individual and collective goals and makes the game rules transparent to all players which skips past the vast application of art of war (which is about figuring out the rules of the specific game).

Observe:
The group who followed Sun Tzu had no chance of becoming invincible, because they didnt want to take risk to take the sword.

However, the other group, who risked, had over 99% chance to become invincible, as each individial had 1% chance and there were 1000 of them. 
If the goal is for the group to win, then of course Sun Tzu would ask for volunteers to pick up the sword.

He wouldn't pickup the sword if the goal is personal survival and neither would anyone else. Everyone who goes to war knows individuals die no matter how perfect your strategy. History has proved people will take 99% chances of death, much more often they don't know the chances but they know they aren't good.

As an individual Sun Tzu might try to appeal to the 2000 to setup a guard around the sword so no one can get to it. He might try to explain that he would not oppose the survivor so he has no invincible enemy to fight.


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@Best.Korea
Its kinda like this: those who dont take risks will never achieve any greatness.
not true

often people are born into greatness

or specifically decide to take the path of least resistance

like marvin minsky
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@Best.Korea
reducing risk is critical to long-term survival
Sometimes, yes, for an individual.
the example in the vid refers to blackrock's aladdin system

which is very specifically a risk avoidance investment platform

and it is now the largest investment company on the planet

by avoiding risk
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If the goal is for the group to win, then of course Sun Tzu would ask for volunteers to pick up the sword.
bingo
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@ADreamOfLiberty
More like "understand what's going on, then choose the highest reward for the lowest risk among your options"
Its not really the highest reward for the lowest risk, since that is literally impossible nonsense claim. Its the best ratio of reward and risk which is the proper tactic and proper term, as that is the only gameplay which makes any sense in terms of military tactics.


He wouldn't pickup the sword if the goal is personal survival and neither would anyone else.
As long as the goal is personal survival, that is, playing it safe, he will never achieve any greatness, which is kinda the point of this example where 1000 brave people take victory over 1000 people focused on individual survival, and since each of those 1000 who would have Sun Tzu mentality, none would take the sword and none would ever achieve greatness, since Sun Tzu has problem with sacrificing himself.

As an individual Sun Tzu might try to appeal to the 2000 to setup a guard around the sword so no one can get to it.
That would be even dumber than your previous claim, since its well known in warfare that trying to defend something is much harder than trying to attack it, due to stretched defense problem and supply problem. Apparently, defender must not only be perfect in concentrating defensive power, perfect in knowing when enemy will attack so you dont suffer a surprise attack disadvantage, perfect in being alert all the time, but he must also protect supply lines which maintain his defense. Due to nature of defensive front, there is no shape other than circle or square formation which can actually counter attacker, since line is vunerable to flanking and to concentrated attack, and has weak mobility. However, both circle and square concentrated formations suffer from being easy targets for archers, or in modern war, artillery and guerrilla. So neither circle, neither square, neither line formation have any advantage for the defender. To make it simple, being forced to defend position and wait for enemy to attack you is about as bad as your position can get in war, since you are just using resources and gaining nothing and losing from attrition, resources point of view, and from concentrated massive attack.

He might try to explain that he would not oppose the survivor so he has no invincible enemy to fight.
The one who is invincible and rules the world would make everyone else his slave, or every other nation a slave while promoting his own. So yeah, Sun Tzu would not only lose chance to be great, but he would be reduced to a slave position.
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@3RU7AL
and it is now the largest investment company on the planet

by avoiding risk
Avoiding risk in investments is about as bad as it can get for society, since new buisnesses are always a risk, and it would be nonsense to say that no one should start any new buisness but just join the big ones already existing. Competition in economy is important, and every buisness is risky, especially new ones. So its not possible to avoid all risk and still have economy.
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@Best.Korea
Avoiding risk in investments is about as bad as it can get for society, since new buisnesses are always a risk, and it would be nonsense to say that no one should start any new buisness but just join the big ones already existing. Competition in economy is important, and every buisness is risky, especially new ones. So its not possible to avoid all risk and still have economy.
NOT investing in new businesses is the biggest risk of all

blackrock is extremely good at mitigating risk
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@Best.Korea
the real question is

would you believe someone who claimed you have a 1% chance of becoming "king of the world" ?
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@Best.Korea
He wouldn't pickup the sword if the goal is personal survival and neither would anyone else.
As long as the goal is personal survival, that is, playing it safe, he will never achieve any greatness, which is kinda the point of this example where 1000 brave people take victory over 1000 people focused on individual survival, and since each of those 1000 who would have Sun Tzu mentality, none would take the sword and none would ever achieve greatness, since Sun Tzu has problem with sacrificing himself.
You aren't engaging with the points that were made.


As an individual Sun Tzu might try to appeal to the 2000 to setup a guard around the sword so no one can get to it.
That would be even dumber than your previous claim, since its well known in warfare that trying to defend something is much harder than trying to attack it, due to stretched defense problem and supply problem.
You aren't even thinking. Swords are not very big, there is no stretched anything.

It would reduce the odds of survival even further reducing the number of people who would try.


He might try to explain that he would not oppose the survivor so he has no invincible enemy to fight.
The one who is invincible and rules the world would make everyone else his slave, or every other nation a slave while promoting his own. So yeah, Sun Tzu would not only lose chance to be great, but he would be reduced to a slave position.
If there is no such thing as a just sword-wielder then the only solution to the game is for everyone to try to kill anyone who approached the sword, just as I described.

Each group of 1000 would know that even if one among them survived touching the sword, they would enslave the rest.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
You aren't even thinking. Swords are not very big, there is no stretched anything
So you dont know what is a stretched defense problem in warfare?

It doesnt relate to size of swords, lol, but it relates to amount of territory you have to cover to defend, which is why concentrated attack is possible where concentrated defense is an impossible concept.

You do know that in battle, concentrated attack is what counts?

Even with swords only, if I have 10 men and you have 10 men, my 10 men attacking together will have advantage over your 10 men stretched across territory being forced to defend multiple points of both territory and supply where I can focus all men on one point, causing you to have less soldiers than me on the point where battle happens, thus you would suffer greater casualties.

Its probably hard for you to imagine, as you are not familiar with what I am talking about, but the concept of maximal attack simply cannot be applied to defensive strategies as you cannot create defense without dividing your army, and a divided army consists of multiple smaller groups, so an attacker who attacks with one larger group against your one smaller group would gain victory with less casualties than you. Defenses simply cannot unite fast enough, as they are forced to separate to defend multiple points, so the distance between groups of defenses is always greater than distance between groups of attackers. So the defense suffers from problems of gaps, some groups being unable to defend one part of territory as they are on another, where attacker only has to attack one point to conquer it, and then move to another point.
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@3RU7AL
would you believe someone who claimed you have a 1% chance of becoming "king of the world" ?
This example is meant to point out importance of taking risk.

Throughout history, many great societies took risks, which is what made them great. The vaccinne was invented by doing tests on humans, where some even died in the process. Factories were places where workers often lost limbs. Early transport system of cars killed millions of people. Its these risks and sacrifices which gave rise to great empires, and not any kind of individual-based safe play.
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@3RU7AL
NOT investing in new businesses is the biggest risk of all
New buisnesses have over 60% failure rate and most dont last for over 5 years. Taking risks is actually essential in economy, and if you have money, you should start a new buisness even if you have over 50% chance to fail. Its the fear of failure which really makes progress impossible. Yes, many will fail, but the ones who succeed will achieve greatness. If no one tries, then no one will achieve any greatness and society stops advancing.
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@Best.Korea
New buisnesses have over 60% failure rate and most dont last for over 5 years.
maybe if you're simply rolling dice

or throwing darts at a board

or picking company names out of a hat

BUT BLACKROCK DOESN'T SIMPLY PICK NEW INVESTMENTS AT RANDOM
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@3RU7AL
BUT BLACKROCK DOESN'T SIMPLY PICK NEW INVESTMENTS AT RANDOM
There is of course a way to reduce risks by being informed about which type of buisness is more likely to succeed. But that doesnt mean there is no risk, since buisness can fail in more than one way. Any buisness can fail at any time, as things in market change often and demand changes often. I am not saying that when you have two equally rewarding options, that you are supposed to go for one of higher risk. No, I am saying that when you have a no risk option with low reward and a high risk option where high risk option carries great reward, you are supposed to go for high risk option. The safest possible play would be not investing at all, and that is obviously the most horrible play for society. And investing in low risk low reward wont get you anywhere either, nor will society prosper from people only seeking safest investments, since most of the revolutionary technology requires great risk since new inventions have high failure rate.
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@Best.Korea
The safest possible play would be not investing at all,
incorrect
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@Best.Korea
Oct 13, 2021 · BlackRock (BLK) reported Wednesday that its assets under management totaled $9.46 trillion in the third quarter.
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@3RU7AL
Oct 13, 2021 · BlackRock (BLK) reported Wednesday that its assets under management totaled $9.46 trillion in the third quarter
Most of the great inventions in history, from airplane, car, smartphones, PC, vaccinnes, solar panels...ect. were all high risk investments. So if you want society with less inventions and less technology, then you go for "safe investments", since those perfer big buisnesses who are already established. New buisnesses, as explained before, always have higher risk of failure than established buisnesses. So unless your idea is to never invest in uncertain innovation and never invest in new buisnesses, then that is just bad for society.

incorrect
If you dont invest, there is no any possibility you lose your money, you can spend it all on yourself. When you invest, there is a good chance you lose all your money, especially if you dont have much money to begin with.
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@Best.Korea
If you dont invest, there is no any possibility you lose your money,
also incorrect
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@3RU7AL
also incorrect
If thats the only response you have, I am afraid I am not interested.

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@Best.Korea
If thats the only response you have, I am afraid I am not interested.
people lose all their money and many many ways

bad investments are merely one of those ways to lose all their money

this seems so obvious it barely seems worth mentioning
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@3RU7AL
people lose all their money and many many ways
No, 99.9% of people dont, unless they die, but investments dont exactly prevent death either so its not a smaller risk.