Line up six strangers along a stone wall, A chamber with one bullet waiting to fall. Five walk away with a million in hand, While the sixth leaves their silhouette drawn in the sand. The economist smiles and tallies the score: Eight hundred thousand and thirty grand more! "An eighty-three percent rate of survival!" they shout, "A logical gamble beyond any doubt!" Chorus Oh, the crowd isn't you, and the ensemble lies, When you average the winners and swallow their prize. You don’t live across parallel lives in the sun— You walk down a single path, round after gun. If the time and the group do not mirror the sea, You are trapped in the jaws of non-ergodicity! Verse 2 Now take that same barrel and hand it to one, And tell them six sequential rounds must be run. Round one they are wealthy, round two they are proud, Round three they can hear all the cheers of the crowd. Round four turns the wheel, round five pulls the pin, By round six the house always cashes them in. The group average lived, but the single line died, For time is a sequence that won't divide. Chorus Oh, the crowd isn't you, and the ensemble lies, When you average the winners and swallow their prize. You don’t live across parallel lives in the sun— You walk down a single path, round after gun. If the time and the group do not mirror the sea, You are trapped in the jaws of non-ergodicity! Bridge They tell you the market goes up eight percent, They plot all the futures where fortunes are spent. They average the millionaires into the graph, And hide the broke gamblers with hollow-eyed laughs. An absorbing barrier waits on the floor: Zero times anything equals no more! No compound can salvage a ship when it sinks, No theory can swallow the poison it drinks. You can’t reach tomorrow if ruin takes hold, Survival comes first before mining for gold! Verse 3 So remember the difference between state and stream, Between one hundred gamblers and one gambler's dream. The ensemble exists as an abstract design, While you must endure every step on the line. Don't optimize payouts where failure means dust; Outlasting the friction is what you must trust. Outro Group average: fortune. Time average: grave. Respect the boundary. Avoid the zero. Survive the trajectory. Walk away from the table alive.
