survivorship bias


Definition
The tendency for failed companies to be excluded from performance studies due to the fact that they no longer exist. Survivorship bias causes the results of some studies to skew higher because only companies which were successful enough to survive until the end of the period are included. Similarly, mutual fund performance may be misleading due to survivorship bias if the fund family tends to merge or discontinue underperforming funds.


Can you explain what you mean.

because they survived you only meet the assholes that killed the losers? is that it?

Bears. Bears killed the losers.

baleen, if you need it spelled out:

You might want to believe that Russians are, by nature, stoic almost cynical people how have trouble getting excited about things like that are inherently happy. I am talking about things like green tea ice cream cake, They Might Be Giants and kittens. Now, not everyone likes those things, but bringing in a green tea ice cream cake into your office is bound to make at least a few people happy. We may observe though, more often than we would expect by chance alone, that your Russian co worker may have trouble even cracking a smile in the presence of a slice of said cake. You might think that the underlying mechanism behind this expectation is due to the genetic variance between Russians and populations of other countries, or the Lamarckian effects of Communism. You might think that.

The seminal result that I have laid out in my previous post is that Russian citizens may not predisposed to be indifferent to happy things, but every Russian one tends to meet outside of Russia is one that has had the fortitude to survive through the situations like we've seen in the video above. Everyone else that was part of the normal distribution was killed by having their neck broken by their friend. Even if they lived, most normal people succumbed to the tissue damage induced by drinking a liter of sub zero chilled vodka. And even if *they* survived after that, the alcohol poisoning that followed would surely take them.

The Russians you and I meet are the ones that are alive after those experiences. I think this may be the reason that it is difficult to catch a Russian smiling. It's not a matter of *being* Russian, it's a matter of being alive after growing up in Russia.

Make sense?

I am so ashamed of both of you.

I am satisfied with your thesis, sir.

Green tea ice cream is one of those things that sounds good on paper but hasn't really been made practical yet.

Simpler explanation: vodka. Lots of vodka.

maybe the Russians you've met just didn't like you.

Gmol and Glennorglennda should get together and just write stupid, spazzy, hundred page long posts together. It'd be AWESOME.

Seriously, you shouldn't kick a guy in the butt after he's pulled a classic prank like that. That's not how they roll at SPORTKOMPLEKS.

Also, I'm pretty sure the guy that kicks the "pusher" can be seen limping in the background at the end of the clip...

don't forget the hair

I wasn't even sure he had on anything under there, until *it* happened

also, if you can pause at :25-:26 it looks like his feet hit the back of his head.

naw, he avoided that thanks to the pool

Didja ever notice how if you loosen up with a few drinks before driving, you don't get nearly as injured as the people in the car that you hit? I think it's kinda like that. Vodka is basically Hit Points in a Bottle.

There is a moment where he's clearly thinking "Why isn't anyone else laughing?"