Hi Indy, I had never heard of survivorship bias, but I know you will have because you are a very smart dog. Any other examples you can think of? Cheers.
Steve Rae
Steve, Survivorship bias is the act of focusing on successful people, businesses, or strategies and ignoring those that failed. Wikipedia has a good page about survivorship bias with lots of examples.
These are the two examples I would add: (1.) Kyle Giersdorf is a 16-year-old gamer who recently won 3 million dollars playing Fortnight. Kids everywhere are pointing to him as their justification for investing thousands of hours into this online game. But Kyle is the “survivor.” Instead, they should consider the millions of kids who have retreated into cocoons of “gamer” isolation and have nothing whatsoever to show for the sacrifice of their childhoods. (2.) People buy lottery tickets because the “survivor” is instantly wealthy. They fail to consider the millions of mortgage foreclosures, unpaid bills, and divorces that are directly attributable to gambling addiction.
Aroo,
Indy