The Black Swan
Quotes
- "Missing a train is only painful if you run after it"
(Para 2, Page 297)
Points
- We can not predict black swans, but we can predict their effects. For example, we cannot say with surety when an earthquake will strike but we can predict what the consequences would be.
The bottom line: be prepared! Narrow-minded prediction has an analgesic or therapeutic effect. Be aware of the numbing effect of magic numbers. Be prepared for relevant eventualities. (Para 5, Page 203)
- We believe blindly certain things with the reason(excuse) that experts suggest so.
Reading the above line would ring true and yet, it would not elicit many examples in our lives. One of them is how a part of our incomes is invested in pension funds or any other funds that we have not researched into but just believe in because everyone else does.
How many such examples are there?
Beyond this, they may believe without question that we can predict societal events, that the Gulag will toughen you a bit, that politicians know more about what is going on than their drivers... (Para 2, Page 290)
Topics
Epistemic Arrogance.
According to NNT, the difference between what someone thinks they know and what they actually know is critical. If what they think they know exceeds what they actually know, that is “epistemic arrogance.” If what they actually know exceeds what they think they know, that is “humility.” NNT favors those who are humble and most favors those who hold their “own knowledge in greatest suspicion.”
Taleb calls our overconfidence in our knowledge “epistemic arrogance.” On the one hand, we overestimate what we know; on the other, we underestimate what we don’t—uncertainty.
Ludic Fallacy #todo #bias
tags: #economics