February 2020, COVID-19 case numbers were breaking records daily. Every morning, the first thing I did was open the WHO statistics page to see how much the numbers had jumped.

At that time, global confirmed cases were around tens of thousands. Watching the curve, my mind automatically generated a question: when would it break one hundred thousand? When would deaths exceed five thousand?

This wasn’t anxiety—well, there was some anxiety. But more than that, it was a conditioned reflex. A thinking habit I had developed during my years trading financial instruments.

Using Questions to Rehearse Worst-Case Scenarios

When I was trading, I did one thing every day before market open: ask myself a series of questions.

What might today’s trend pattern look like? If there’s a sudden 3% drop, what should I do? If there’s a sudden surge, what happens to my positions? What kind of movement would be “completely unexpected” for me? If that movement occurred, how much would my current positions cost me?

The purpose of these questions wasn’t prediction—prediction is impossible. Their purpose was rehearsal.

The difference between prediction and rehearsal is enormous. Prediction means saying “I think it will rise” and then betting on it. Rehearsal means saying “if it falls, rises, or consolidates, here’s what I’ll do in each case” and then establishing corresponding plans.

Prediction requires you to be right to survive. Rehearsal lets you survive even when you’re wrong.

This habit later extended from trading to every aspect of my life. When I saw pandemic numbers jumping, I wouldn’t think “it probably won’t be too serious”—I would think “if it’s more serious than everyone expects, what will I do?”

Things-in-Themselves Are Unknowable

This thinking habit has a philosophical foundation at its core.

Kant spoke of a concept: “things-in-themselves” (Ding an sich) are unknowable. What we can know is always phenomena, not things themselves.

Popper brought this concept into philosophy of science, developing falsificationism. His core argument is: scientific theories can never be “verified,” only “falsified.” You can observe ten thousand white swans and not prove “all swans are white.” But you only need to see one black swan to falsify that proposition.

This logic had an enormous impact on me.

Because it means: your past experience can never guarantee the future. You’ve traded for ten years with consistently good performance, but that doesn’t mean you truly understand markets. It only means you haven’t encountered that black swan yet.

Capital markets are more vast than we imagine. So is the world. The data we collect is only the tip of the iceberg, our eyes are full of bias, our ways of interpreting information are full of blind spots.

Every day, we’re like blind men feeling an elephant. The only difference is: some people know they’re feeling an elephant, others think they’ve seen the whole picture.

Certainty Is Poison

In markets, the most dangerous mindset isn’t fear, but certainty.

Fear makes you cautious, makes you leave room for retreat. But certainty makes you put all your chips on the same direction, then when the black swan appears, face complete ruin.

I’ve seen too many such cases. A trader wins for twelve consecutive months, starts feeling he’s grasped market patterns. Then in the thirteenth month, the market makes a move he “never imagined,” losing a year’s profits in one month.

The problem wasn’t with that movement—the movement itself wasn’t particularly extreme. The problem was his mindset: because of twelve months of success, he stopped asking “what if I’m wrong?”

This follows the same logic I discussed in “The Overlooked Metric of Civilization: The Risk Philosophy of Replacing ‘Goals’ with ‘Systems’”: you can’t just look at returns, you must also consider risk. A strategy with 30% annual returns that could blow up your account isn’t as good as a system with 10% annual returns that’s rock solid.

The core of falsification thinking is: always assume you might be wrong, then prepare for “what to do if you’re wrong.”

What the Pandemic Taught Us

COVID-19 was a global-scale falsification event.

It falsified the assumption that “globalization only has benefits.” It falsified confidence that “advanced countries’ public health systems can handle anything.” It falsified expectations that “the economy will continue steady growth.” It falsified the imagination that “large-scale lockdowns are impossible in modern society.”

In the early stages of the pandemic, many people (including many experts) reacted with: “it probably won’t be too serious.” This judgment wasn’t based on analysis, but on comfort—admitting “it might be serious” would bring too much uncertainty, and the human brain doesn’t like uncertainty.

But falsification thinking requires you to do the opposite: when everyone is saying “it probably won’t be too serious,” ask yourself: “if it really is serious, am I prepared?”

I did several things early in the pandemic: reduced non-essential cash expenditures, confirmed the company’s remote work capabilities, assessed survival time under worst-case scenarios. These actions seemed like “overreactions” at the time. Three months later, many companies and individuals who hadn’t made these preparations found themselves in extremely passive situations.

Not because I was smarter than others. Because falsification thinking made me habitually ask “what if the worst-case scenario comes true?”—rather than assume the worst-case scenario wouldn’t happen.

Living with Uncertainty

Finally, I want to discuss a more fundamental issue.

Our education, our culture, our society—all teach us to pursue “certainty.” Get into good schools, find stable jobs, buy houses, save for retirement—each step tries to eliminate future uncertainty.

But falsificationism tells you a brutal fact: uncertainty cannot be eliminated. What you can do isn’t eliminate it, but learn to coexist with it.

Coexisting with uncertainty means several things. Acknowledging you don’t know more than you do know. Maintaining humility about your judgments, always ready to be falsified. Building redundancy—not putting all eggs in one basket, not building all plans on the assumption that “everything goes smoothly.” Continuing to question—not to get answers, but to stay alert.

This applies in markets. This applies in life. This applies during pandemics. This applies everywhere black swans roam.

When you lose money, you lose money. Credentials, connections, family background—these are useless in the face of markets. Useless in the face of black swans too. The only useful thing is having asked yourself before it appears: “if it comes, can I survive?”

What you can’t block, learn to coexist with. And the starting point of coexistence is acknowledging: we’re blind men feeling an elephant every day. Knowing this isn’t weakness. It’s the only rational stance.