Back in the late 1960s, during graduate study at UCLA, I had a casual conversation with professor Armen Alchian, one of my tenacious mentors. Professor Alchian is among the top 20th-century contributors to economic knowledge. During our coffee hour conversation, I was trying to impress professor Alchian with my knowledge of type I and type II statistical errors.
I told him that my wife assumes that everybody is her friend until they prove differently. While such an assumption maximizes the number of friends that she will have, it also maximizes her chances of being betrayed. Unlike my wife, my assumption is everyone is my enemy until they prove they?re a friend. That assumption minimizes my number of friends but minimizes the chances of betrayal.
