Advice about how to sustain something is worth little from anyone whose own attempt has not yet run its course.
Berg's version concerns marriage advice from parents whose children have not yet left home. The general form is stronger: testimony about a strategy is offered at the point of greatest confidence, which is usually before the outcome exists, and the advisers whose approach later failed do not return to withdraw it.
In practice
- A founder two years in writes the guide to building a company, and the version written at year ten would be different.
- A parenting method promoted by people whose children are seven has not been tested on anything that matters yet.
- Standing
- From Berg's numbered set, first codified on his blog in 2005. A folk statement of survivorship and premature testimony: the sample of confident advisers is drawn from people whose result is not yet known. Compare the toupee fallacy and survivorship bias.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- Proverbs that recur across cultures