Survivor Bias

Consider that the sample you observe is incomplete, and biased in a particular way.

[MateusAntonioBittencourt]

In WWI... at the start of the war, the soldiers didn't wear helmets... and in the infirmaries they quickly realize that most injures were in the top of the head from artillery fire... so the army quickly started issuing those classic WWI helmets everyone knows. The problem was that instead of decreasing the number of head injures, the infirmaries experience an almost 5 times increase in the number of soldiers with head injures. Seeing that some (stupid) people in high command though they should prohibit the use of the helmet since it was clearly worsening the situation. Of course (smart) people realized that the number of head injuries increase, because before the helmets, those people were being killed, instead of just injured.

[MadMovieMakers]

The same definitely applies to movies, everyone says that old movies are better but that's only because we remember the classics and not the duds.

[BenSalernoMedia]

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould

[Werrf]

I think this every time I see someone post one of those "We rode in the backs of pickup trucks that ran on leaded petrol, and our mothers smoked and drank through pregnancy, and we survived!" Well, yeah..._you_ survived. How many didn't?

[mizuhonova]

This video was unexpectedly more deep than usual. But maybe I'm biased because I just saw this video a few minutes ago and remember it better.

[rydemk]

Bill gates dropped out of Harvard, not community college

[pretendawatch]

Music is a big one. There are always people that say "music was better in the 60s" for example. Look at The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pink Floydd etc. Personal bias aside, there is also the fact that there were also millions of other terrible crummy bands of the same genre that didn't survive until today. Loads of failed attempts and the only ones that survive until today were the ones that were good enough to be succesful then.

[dead_machine]

Man, you really are one of the best content creators on YouTube. Me and my brothers in Brazil love your videos :D

[stephenwaldron]

I don't really like adding this to this (surprisingly nice for YouTube) comment pool, but

I just wanted to say that I guess this would apply to questions raised by some concerning intelligent design, saying "why is the eye so perfect", or "why are animals so perfect for their environment" when the simple answer is "they survived".

It's something I thought of for a while, and didn't know exactly how to say it, like the furthest I got was, if I see "why do animals want to reproduce", I think "why does dust want to gather in corners".

Thanks for the vid :)

[Osjey]

from 6:18 to 7:50 hit close to home. I always blamed myself for not trying hard enough, and then tried harder. When success didn't happen, I blamed myself again and tried even harder. And then... there was no success. All the successful people shove their success in your face and claim they "worked harder than everybody else". This made me spiteful, hateful and very depressed. The thought "what if they are right and I still should try harder" got me back in the working loop. Learning about survivor bias puts my mind to ease. I did work very hard. I just haven't gotten lucky yet.

[mattcelder]

Lol at the way he is talking to the camera as he walks past numerous "Silence please" signs.

[alecity]

I imagine the few people who understand english and encountered you in the street, the ones who don't know look strange at you but think you are making a vlog about the preserved historical area of the city, those who know english otherwise will see a vlogger think the same thing and then hear "if a cat falls from the twentyeth floor it just splats" and get more confused than a bee in an elevator.

[timojissink]

I think this is one of the main reasons why people say that music used to be better than it is today. All the great songs are to be remembered and the awefull ones are to be forget, that leaves you with nothing but the great songs.

[sabaca]

The survivor Bias is actually something I think about a lot. Especially when it comes to competitive environments and how people keep asking the winners how to improve. They might not know themselves what actually made them improve, they just believe that something made them improve.

[tsuso]

If some cats survived after reaching terminal velocity then would that mean some cats could survive falling from a plane

[kalevader]

Perfect! Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and... "that guy that founded Dell"

[カロ-eo]

What you said a the end, how the people who succeed make the rules, reminds me of my struggles as an amateur artists. A lot of the advice I get from pros ... just doesn't work, and I realized why: they have other parts of the information that they just expect people to have, because they have it.

Same goes for my skills with a computer. It's odd to me when people can't solve a basic tech problem that I only had to google. When it's obvious what is going on is that all the people I know, who do what I do, have that skill.

[themike_]

I think being aware of survivor bias is also important in developing a sense of humility. understanding that there are many genius-level people who were unlucky enough to be born in a place that offers little to no social mobility or education, or who have experienced things in their lives that significantly impact their natural talents and that despite that, you were lucky enough to not be subject to such circumstances and succeed is a powerful thing.

[wlee]

I am reasonably successful by American society"s standards. I got a great post-secondary education. I am a physician. I worked hard. Even so, the underlying reasons for my success remain that I was born into a home with two loving parents who were college educated and stayed together. They taught me that education is important and that I should never be resting on my laurels. They achieved financial stability and created a home full of emotional stability for my brother and me. They fostered an environment where I was actually expected to go to university. I am also a straight, white, male who speaks native American dialect. Would I have been successful based on hard work alone? Maybe. I was given so many lucky breaks that I really can't claim it on my ambition and intellect alone.

[Enn-]

I'm glad that you took a moment to highlight your point at the end, yet saddened that you (rightly) needed to. Yes, "this is the Internet", but for some reason my mind keeps telling me that the kind of people that watch your videos are people interested in "thinking", and that even though we're all still learning, there really shouldn't be a need to clarify that point.
Thanks for the video - I'm glad that you decided to do what you do.