Andrew W. Lo

“Evolution can even explain how our behaviors interact. Remember how the amygdala can suppress higher brain functions—for example, in the expression “His mind was clouded by fear.” This is manifestly irrational behavior, but it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Strong emotions like fear are an immediate call-to-arms to survive, selected by evolution over millions of generations of life in hostile environments. Our more recently evolved cognitive functions, such as language and logical reasoning, are suppressed until the perceived threat to our survival is over, that is, until our emotional reaction subsides. The universality of this fear response means that fear has been so useful in past environments that it has evolved to override all other neural components under sufficient threat.”
― Andrew W. Lo, Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought

“Not surprisingly, the father if market efficiency, Gene Farma, has a very clever way to avoid the pitfalls of hyperbolic discounting. When he's invited to talk or engage in sone business activity, he has a . simple rule for deciding whether to accept: no matter how far in the future it's scheduled, he ask himself whether it's something he would want to do if the event were next week; if the answer is yes, he accepts, otherwise, he politely declines. This simple rule of thumb ensures that he uses the same discount rate across all decision horizons.”
― Andrew W. Lo