> That implies that it is ridiculously easy to be right when everyone else is wrong

I think this true but misleading — conditioned on other people going with the herd in the wrong direction, it is easy to be right. However, often the herd is going in a right (or at least acceptable) direction. The continual effort to check if the herd is going in the right direction _is not_ easy. If a magic eight ball could alert you “hey the herd is wrong right now, take a closer look”, that would be great! But we have no such magic eight ball.

Very often the fact that the herd is going in that direction causes it to become the right direction, e.g. the stock market.

>magic ball

The comment mentioned it..

>principle-based analysis..