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Illusion of validity

The confidence that comes from a coherent story or a rich-looking model, independent of whether it predicts anything.

Consistency feels like accuracy. When the indicators agree, the narrative fits, and the chart looks clean, confidence rises sharply, even though agreement among correlated inputs adds almost no information.

Most technical toolkits are built from the same price series, so three confirming indicators are often one observation repeated three times. The feeling of confluence outruns the actual independence of the evidence.

Ask what each input would say if the others were wrong. Inputs that cannot disagree are not confirmation. Measured hit rates, not tidiness, are what should move your confidence.

Related: confluence, overconfidence, narrative-fallacy, indicator-shopping

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