# A Big Little Idea Called Ergodicity (Or The Ultimate Guide to Russian Roulette)

![rw-book-cover](https://taylorpearson.cdnoptimus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/4855d132b066032671a61b0ba5496c76_771x517-1.jpg)

## Metadata
- Author: [[Taylor Pearson]]
- Full Title: A Big Little Idea Called Ergodicity (Or The Ultimate Guide to Russian Roulette)
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://taylorpearson.me/ergodicity/

## Highlights
- The probabilities of success from the collection of people do not apply to one person.
- In non-ergodic contexts the concept of “expected returns” is effectively meaningless.
- Many “irrational” behaviors or “cognitive biases” are actually individuals realizing that a system is non-ergodic and not optimizing for expected value.
- Antifragility is a function of combining a multitude of entities so that each one of them is non-ergodic but the ensemble is ergodic.
- frequently correlated than anti-correlated.
- Vladimir Lenin put it “There are decades in which nothing happens and weeks in which decades happen.”
# A Big Little Idea Called Ergodicity (Or The Ultimate Guide to Russian Roulette)

![rw-book-cover](https://taylorpearson.cdnoptimus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/4855d132b066032671a61b0ba5496c76_771x517-1.jpg)

## Metadata
- Author: [[Taylor Pearson]]
- Full Title: A Big Little Idea Called Ergodicity (Or The Ultimate Guide to Russian Roulette)
- Category: #articles
- URL: https://taylorpearson.me/ergodicity/

## Highlights
- In an ergodic scenario, the average outcome of the group is the same as the average outcome of the individual over time.
- In a non-ergodic system, the individual, over time, does not get the average outcome of the group.
- A way to identify an ergodic situation is to ask do I get the same result if I: 1. look at one individual’s trajectory across time2 2. look at a bunch of individual’s trajectories at a single point in time If yes: ergodic. If not: non-ergodic.
- If you graph an antifragile system, there is limited downside and unlimited upside. Going to cocktail parties is antifragile – you can only lose a bit of time (limited downside) but you could meet someone who will change your life (unlimited upside).