the.com/contrarian
disagrees for a living, and is right just often enough to keep doing it.
means someone who deliberately takes the opposite position of consensus, often as a matter of principle or strategy rather than fresh evidence.
from from contrary, via medieval latin contrarius, opposite; the noun sense of a person who habitually opposes prevailing opinion took hold in early 20th century finance writing, where it meant buying what everyone else was selling.
finance originpopularized by investors betting against market sentiment.
not skepticismskeptics follow evidence, contrarians follow the crowd inversely.
self-defeating trapif everyone turns contrarian, contrarianism becomes consensus.
for instance
peter thiel — built a career and fund on secrets nobody else believes.
michael burry — shorted the 2008 housing market while wall street laughed.
nassim taleb — built entire philosophy around distrusting expert consensus.
christopher hitchens — argued against his own side just to test the room.