Today, we might have a controversial topic. Let me ask you this. Would you kill someone if I told you to do so? Would you kill someone if a policeman told you to do so? What if the President told you to kill someone? Would you slaughter an innocent baby; a woman who was on a park bench reading the news paper?
Who would you murder?
Most likely 99% of us would say NO. We would not kill just because someone told us to do so. However I have data that may suggest you don’t know what you are capable of unless you are put in that situation. In our last section, we talked about why traders follow the crowd. In this section, we will talk about why traders take a trade just because someone said to do so.
First let’s look at a few times when people did something they never would have thought, in a million years, they were capable of. After you read these, I will show you why you may make the same mistakes in your trading efforts.
1. Nazi Germany
2. Mass Killings in China
3. Jonestown
Nazi Germany
In World War 2, millions of Jews are murdered. We all know this but have you ever stopped to think why? What went on in the minds of all of the nazis who committed these murders. Hitler didn’t do it all by himself.
How, on Earth could normal people commit such violent acts against millions of people?
Mao Murders
Over 45 Million people perished under the Mao regime!
- What did they do, that was so bad, to get their lives ended this way?
- The people murdering all these men, women, and even babies, did it for what?
… because someone told them to do so? Maybe they feared that if they didn’t do it, they themselves would be killed? It’s crazy to think people would do this. It’s not human.
But they did it anyway…
Jonestown
Here, people were not murdered in mass, per se. Rather they chose to take their own lives in a mass suicide.
Why? Because some shithead told them to do so. They believed so bad that they were willing to take their own life. Again, this is not how normal people should act, but they did.
Time and time again throughout history, people do very bad things for no other reason that because someone told them to do it. In many instances, they didn’t even fear that they would die. That’s not the reason. The reason is because they viewed someone in authority and took order… no questions asked.
Would you do something if someone in authority told you to do it… no questions asked?
I have proof that may prove otherwise...
The Milgram Experiments
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments, in 1961, conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. The experiment found that a very high rate of people were prepared to obey up to the point of murdering someone.
Watch this 1962 documentary. WARNING! THIS IS VERY DISTURBING!
But Ryan, (That's me lol) People would not act that way today! That's been 45 years ago...
Wrong!
This video shows how ABC did their own research and performed the same tests in 2014.
If all of those people are willing to murder, just because they were told to do so by a person in ‘authority’, then how much easier would it be for you and I to take a trade, just because an ‘authority’ figure told us to do so?
Now I said all of that to say this. We, as humans and as traders are far capable of doing anything someone else tells us to do, if we view them as a person in authority. Quite often, we will never even question their instructions and take trades blindly.
Traders do it every day. Some turd on financial news will say, ” Buy XYZ now!” and traders, like sheep, will buy just because that individual told them to buy. They will never question him and will never require any type of proof. They will never open their mouth for any reason because he is an authority on the subject.
Many traders will say something like, ” Well he is on TV and knows more than I do.” HOGWASH PEOPLE!!! The TV personalities don’t know any more than you or I. Financial TV Gurus, or some ‘Guru’ on the internet that says he has all the answers is scamming you! You want to have someone to look up to so you put your full faith and trust into someone that is no better than you at making trade calls.
Question Everything!
Before you take a trade, make damn sure that it is a trade that you believe in. Make darn sure that you are not just following the sheep to slaughter.
