Recently, while folding laundry, I encountered an old problem again: I clearly remember putting pairs of socks into the washing machine, so why do I always end up with a single sock when hanging them out to dry?

I often see various “credible” explanations for this phenomenon: washing machines eating socks, socks running off to parallel universes, or even sock goblins at work.

Why do socks disappear, but only one?
by in RandomThoughts

The comments on the Reddit post above are quite interesting too:

I once put all my single socks in a bag, and then the entire sock bag disappeared.

Lint is the cremated remains of lost socks

While reading Taleb’s “The Black Swan” recently, I suddenly thought this example would be perfect for explaining Silent Evidence. I’d like to share this concept and some possible solutions I came up with for this problem.

Silent Evidence: The Evidence We Cannot See

When we complain about “losing another sock,” we’re actually only observing one situation: “the lonely single sock left behind.” This lonely sock acts like a witness, reminding us that a sock has gone missing.

But what if both socks disappeared? In this case, we would never realize any socks were lost.

No witness, no reminder—it’s as if nothing happened at all. Our brains wouldn’t even register this event.

The Solution?

The crux lies in “our socks come in pairs,” so perhaps if we break this rule, we won’t notice any sock losses?

(Friendly reminder: “not noticing” only provides peace of mind—you’ll still suffer the actual loss XD)

I propose two solutions:

Solution 1: Always wear two socks that don’t form a pair

This approach has an additional benefit: choosing socks becomes super fast!

Every morning, just randomly pick two different socks and you’re ready to go. The only thing you might have to endure is others’ stares, but isn’t it a great trade-off—lose one thing, gain two?

Solution 2: Buy all socks in the same color

This is a refined version of the above approach. You don’t have to endure strange looks while still enjoying the speed benefit.

Most importantly, it solves the problem: we won’t discover after doing laundry that we’re missing another sock!

Unless… you count the total. Once you find the total number of socks has become odd, you’ll know you’ve lost one again.

Conclusion

I hope after reading this article, you now know how to avoid discovering that you’ve lost another sock. More importantly, through this everyday occurrence, we can understand how silent evidence affects our perception: we’re always drawn to obvious anomalies while ignoring events that happen silently.

If you’re interested in “The Black Swan,” feel free to check it out here.