tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post1031456896212136110..comments2024-03-29T04:06:37.402-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Nicholas Nassim Taleb Looks at the WorldStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-59390857594543453602017-02-08T18:34:51.986-08:002017-02-08T18:34:51.986-08:00Ignatius: You're asking the wrong guy.Ignatius: You're asking the wrong guy. Olympus Aresnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-774225970146814972017-02-08T16:36:37.350-08:002017-02-08T16:36:37.350-08:00Ares, pray tell, what did you actually SAY in your...Ares, pray tell, what did you actually SAY in your comment here?<br /><br />It vexes me. I am truly vexed.Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18222603717128565302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-1423548094212524062017-02-08T07:38:29.646-08:002017-02-08T07:38:29.646-08:00SS: "By that he meant that whatever you or th...SS: "By that he meant that whatever you or the government are preparing for, whatever you have predicted, is unlikely to happen..."<br /><br />Well, no. Taleb's focus was on the underlying assumptions of the modeling used by the forecasting and prediction industry. All too often, those models are based on, for example, Monte Carlo simulation models with convenient and closed solutions that, in fact, do not comport with reality. They may do "well enough" most of the time, but when they fail, they can fail catastrophically. In AI, this phenomenon is sometimes called "brittleness". In fact, climate models suffer from the same disease (e.g., assumed mathematical independence of partial derivatives that are not, in fact, independent).<br /><br />Taleb's observation is made crystal clear by the predictive accuracy of Fed economic modeling or CBO taxation modeling. They're always wrong to some degree, it's simply a matter of how wrong they are in any given case. And, as Taleb argues, there's no way to know how wrong they will be for any given extrapolation about the future; c.f., Bernanke's comments about the future of mortgage lending... "With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly." Indeed.Trigger Warningnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-14304216990624097862017-02-08T06:28:21.420-08:002017-02-08T06:28:21.420-08:00Nicholas Nassim Taleb is an interesting character,...Nicholas Nassim Taleb is an interesting character, and anyone who "predicted" the 2008 financial crisis automatically deserves some consideration, and his book antifragile is certainly a serious effort at understanding something paradoxical.<br /><br />And its interesting that Taleb as an apparent expert enjoys dismissing other experts so consistently. I can understand reasoning, basically the world is a complex place, and any ideas we have about it are most certainly wrong.<br /><br />Well, like my coworker has a poster with a quote from George Box "All models are wrong but some are useful". That's worth remembering.<br /><br />And the other worthy quote, from Wolfgang Pauli, is "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong," so there are coherent ways to be wrong, and there are incoherent ways to be wrong, and science has a possibility to learn from the first, but the second is where psuedoscience exists, and where you can't even be self-correcting, rather you're just in a chaotic place, trying to put together a puzzle pieces that don't even belong to the same puzzle.<br /><br />So Taleb lives in that world, although not even necessarily the scientific version of it, but the statistical side of it, and while he knows well that we see patterns in randomness and assume randomness in patterns that are too complex to see, he is still ultimately like the rest of us, lost at sea, trying to make sense of things, and perhaps like me, he finds it easier to tear things down that are wrong, than bother rejecting things that are "not even wrong", so apparently Trump is good and Obama is bad, because people understand why Trump is wrong, and ordinary people can't understand why Obama was wrong.<br /><br />Here's one blog I've noticed in recent years, "QUIXOTIC FINANCE: To protect our windmills against Don Quixote and his Knights of the Holy Black Swan", that doesn't like Taleb, and at least it gives me some sense of how his colleague see him<br /><br />Like this long blog on the conflict between Pinker's surprising claim that violence is decreasing in the world, and Taleb's rejection of it.<br />http://quixoticfinance.com/empty-statistics/<br /><br />And it gives a procedure for Taleb's style, which looks more about ego and status than truth. And apparently its a team sport, so tribal self-deceptions are involved too. And don't forget to bring your strawmen to the fight. <br /><br />The logic of academic warfare<br />---------<br />1. Scholar says A.<br />2. Taleb hears B, takes offense and declares war.<br />3. After firing a first salvo of noisy blanks and stray bullets, Taleb decides it’s time to hire a mercenary.<br />4. Looking forward to fighting at the side of a famous warlord, mercenary accepts the mission.<br />5. Taleb & mercenary pull out an impressive arsenal of missiles, and launch them in an all-out attack against their enemy.<br />6. When the dust settles, it turns out they’ve been bombing an undisputed patch of land in the desert. None of their missiles ever came close to the target.<br />7. Impressed by the huge clouds of smoke, Taleb’s followers cheer at their leader’s glorious victory.<br />---------<br /><br />Certainly if the ordinary person had a chance to look at the vanity and petty fights among the so-called experts of the world, they could instantly feel superior. But as long as we have President Trump, we can all sudddenly feel superior, whatever side we're on.<br />Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.com