The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 41 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Robinson: Assets continue falling when investors claim drops make no sense
“When somebody says it doesn't make any sense that X keeps going lower, Get in the trade. It's got a lot lower to go.”
Robinson: Liberal arts breadth fails to teach thinking compared to deep mastery
“If you learn a little bit about a lot of things, you'll be able to generalize and kind of think about anything. Well, no, you won't, because you've never learned how to think. At Oxford and Cambridge, the belief is learn one thing really well, and then you can…”
Robinson: Changing Thinking Only Has Two Levers—Questions and Inspired Answers
“There are really only two ways you can change someone's thinking. You can either change the questions that person asks, or you can provide them with more inspired answers. Those are really only two levers.”
Robinson: When Markets Defy Logic, the Prevailing Trend Continues
“When somebody says it doesn't make any sense that X keeps going lower, get in the trade. It's got a lot lower to go.”
Robinson: Fundamental analysts show hubris expecting unique insights from standard MBA tools
“Every fundamental analyst believes he or she using exactly the same tools that every other and information and information that every other MBA, former MBA student has acquired reading security analysis is going to discover something no one else has discovered…”
Robinson: Bond traders are right over equity traders 99% of the time
“I would tell you that 19 times out of 20, when those two groups disagree, the bond traders are right and early. They are right and early. When I say 19 times out of 20, really I mean 99 times out of a hundred. If you want to find out when a stock is going to b…”
Robinson: Oil is the hardest commodity to predict due to sovereign trading
“For example, the hardest commodity to predict is oil... And I will tell you that no, there is no consistent leader of those three groups, and I believe the reason for that is that oil is traded by the sovereign nations. So, so the sovereign nations that contro…”
Robinson: Academic Performance Is Inversely Related to Self-Esteem
“In fact, it's academic performance is inversely related to self-esteem.”
Robinson: Rereading study notes is an ineffective waste of time
“Rereading your notes? Waste of time.”
Robinson treats minor intuitive anomalies as major warnings and exits immediately
“Whenever things are a little strange, they're very strange. If something is, seems a little bit off, it's really off, and I don't wait to figure out, to assess the situation. I remove myself from it immediately.”
Robinson: ChatGPT is purely deductive and incapable of making novel logical leaps
“It doesn't come up with insights. It's a really good deductive analytic machine, but it's not yet capable of making logical leaps that aren't evident from the domain.”
Robinson: When AI answers everything, human edge is asking better questions
“The key thing in school right now, this is really important, it's the key to the future, it's the key for everything, not just school, is when you've got machines that can answer anything, the edge is Who asks the best questions? That's key.”
Robinson: Modern Internet Technology Operates as a Confirmation Bias Engine
“And technology is one big confirmation bias engine.”
Robinson: Tech Platforms Hijack Attention by Heightening Emotional Arousal
“Technology is designed to get us to respond, and the way to do that is to heighten emotions and hijack attention, and it does so with ferocious efficiency, and it's unrelenting.”
Robinson: Attention should only be focused on tasks or others
“There are only two places your attention should be, either on the task at hand or on others. So if you're feeling any negative emotion you feel, whether it's doubt or fear or frustration or loneliness, it's a sign to redirect your attention.”
Robinson: Technical analysis suffers from severe confirmation bias across limitless indicator parameters
“The problem with technical analysis is one of confirmation bias. The technical analyst has literally hundreds of technical indicators, and each indicator has literally limitless parameter settings.”
Robinson: Prolonged sideways consolidation transfers assets from weak hands to strong hands
“So the third way prices change is a protracted period of nothing going on. In other words, a stock just moving sideways for months or years. And I'm using air quotes, nothing going on, because something really strong is going on, something really powerful. And…”
Robinson: Equity traders beat currency traders on FX direction 75% of time
“When Currency traders and equity traders disagree about the direction of currencies. The equity traders are going to be right on the currencies three times out of four.”
Robinson: Test Score Gains Inversely Correlate With Student Confidence
“Incidentally, and this is important improvement was inversely related to perceived chances of success. Inversely related. So you wanted a kid who said the following, I don't think I'm going to pass the test. That kid improved a lot more than a kid who said, I'…”
Robinson: The LSAT selects for single-answer pickers over nuanced thinkers
“The LSAT asks you a question. It gives you five choices, and to do well on that test, you need to be able to pick an answer quickly, an answer, not argue for two choices. Which means that the LSAT self-selects For people who are really good at selecting an ans…”
Robinson: Surprise reveals an incorrect mental model and aids learning
“Surprise is always, what surprise is telling you, Shane, is this, your model of the world is incorrect. Which is fantastic. It's a learning opportunity. That's what surprise is.”
Robinson: Memory mnemonics reduce to pictures, patterns, stories, or rhymes
“Create a picture, a pattern, a story, or a rhyme out of it. All mnemonics come back to picture, pattern, story, or rhyme, but they don't tell us that.”
Robinson: Skill acquisition requires breaking down domains and rehearsing sub-skills
“The secret to learning anything is this. Anything. I'm glad you asked that question. Rehearsing. If you want to get good at football, play football. If you want to get good at playing the guitar, play the guitar. If you want to get good at chess, you've got to…”
Robinson: Attempt practice questions before reading chapters to prime learning
“Try the sample questions at the end of the chapter before you read the chapter. Now, because what that does is it primes you. Now, now all of a sudden, whoa, how would I, there's no way I can answer those questions. Let's, now you're primed as you read the cha…”
Adam Robinson: Capital preservation is critical because investing mistakes permanently deplete learning capital
“In a chess game, if I lose it, the next round, tomorrow, I'm the same chess player. But investing, if I've lost money today, I have less money tomorrow to invest with. And the problem with a lot of people in investing is that they're, to become a decent invest…”
Robinson: Stupidity is overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information
“So I define stupidity as overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information, and Tim was dismissing it.”
Robinson: All advice and wisdom are fundamentally warnings
“And it's key, especially for you, Shane, is that all advice is a warning. All wisdom is a warning.”
Robinson: User Data's True Value Comes from Aggregate Cross-Referencing
“The value of your data is when they cross-reference it with other people, right? The value emerges not just because Shane is using Google, but lots of other people are, and they're able to do, use statistics and machine learning to find patterns so that they u…”
Robinson: All mnemonics reduce to pictures, patterns, stories, or rhymes
“Create a picture, a pattern, a story, or a rhyme out of it. All mnemonics come back to picture, pattern, story, or rhyme, but they don't tell us that.”
Robinson: The key to learning is breaking skills down and rehearsing them
“The key to learning any skill, really, if there's anything I said today, like, that was super important, the key to learning any skill, rehearse it. Break it down into sub-skills, and the rehearse Each of those skills.”
Robinson: Attempt Chapter Questions Before Reading to Prime Problem-Solving
“Try the sample questions at the end of the chapter before you read the chapter. Now, because what that does is it primes you. Now, now all of a sudden, whoa, how would I, there's no way I can answer those questions. Let's, now you're primed as you read the cha…”
Robinson: Translate Notes into Your Own Words Rather Than Rereading Them
“When you take notes in school, they're probably verbatim just because you've got to keep up with the teacher, right? But then translate those notes into your own words, because that's what you're going to have to do on the test. Don't reread your notes. Transl…”
Robinson: Wikipedia extracts immense uncompensated economic value by offering intrinsic worth
“Wikipedia extracts economic value from people without compensating them. It offers them the opportunity to extract intrinsic value, intrinsic worth from the activity.”
Robinson: Tapping into unconscious truth will startle and surprise you
“Here's, here's a clue that you've tapped into truth with a capital T, and that your unconscious is speaking, is that the answer will surprise you. You'll be startled by it.”
Robinson: A market trend is fundamentally the spread of an idea
“A trend is the spread of an idea. That's all a trend is. That's the spread of an idea.”
Robinson: Parabolic moves occur more often during market declines than rises
“Parabolic moves, you see, you don't see them often in markets. You see them more often on the decline than on the rise.”
Robinson: CAD/USD is the best forex proxy for oil price convictions
“The Canadian dollar versus the US dollar is is the best foreign exchange expression of the price of oil, of because we're such an oil rich nation or rich nation. Right. And that's the way currency traders express their view, right? So if currency traders belie…”
Robinson: Test Prep Is Unforgiving Because Teacher Impact Is Exactly Measurable
“Test prep is a ruthlessly unforgiving domain, because you can measure how good a job the tutor has done down to the decimal. You know exactly whether he's done a good job or not.”
Robinson: Doubling down on failing methods fails; progress requires detached experimentation
“We think that what we're doing, we're not trying, as I'm using air quotes now, trying hard enough, or we'll invest some more money, and that's not changing what you're doing, that's just doing more of the same, and the goal is to be detached and experimental, …”
Robinson: When stuck, start experimenting in the exact opposite direction
“All you need to do is just change what you're doing. Not more of it. Not more of the same. Do something different. And a good first step is, is in the opposite direction. Right? If you don't know how to change what you're doing, start off in the opposite direc…”