A Discussion on the Work of Daniel Kahneman
Edge.org asked the likes of Christopher Chabris, Nicholas Epley, Jason Zweig, William Poundstone, Cass Sunstein, Phil Rosenzweig, Richard Thaler & Sendhil Mullainathan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, …
Nassim Taleb
Nassim Taleb on the Notion of Alternative Histories
We see what’s visible and available. Often this is nothing more than randomness and yet we wrap a narrative around it. The trader who is rich must know what he is doing. A good outcome means we …
What Is Complexity?
While it seems more and more common these days, it’s important to determine when you’re operating in complexity. Complexity means that little things can have a big effect and big things …
A Wonderfully Simple Heuristic to Recognize Charlatans
While we can learn a lot from what successful people do in the mornings, as Nassim Taleb points out, we can learn a lot from what failed people do before breakfast too. Inversion is actually one of …
Genetically Modified: Where Does the Burden of Proof Rest?
This is from an interesting article in the New York Times on one man’s quest to find out the truth on genetically modified crops. “Greggor Ilagan initially thought a ban on genetically …
Iatrogenics: Why Intervention Often Leads to Worse Outcomes
Iatrogenics is when a treatment causes more harm than benefit. As iatros means healer in Greek, the word means “caused by the healer” or “brought by the healer.” Healer, in …
20 Aphorisms from Nassim Taleb
The Bed of Procrustes, the title of Nassim Taleb‘s book of aphorisms, takes its title from Greek Mythology. Procrustes (“the stretcher”) owned a small estate along the sacred way …
34 Insights From Nassim Taleb
Nassim Taleb, the author of The Black Swan and Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder with 34 insights from his facebook account: The artificial gives us hangovers, the natural inverse-hangovers. …
Choosing Your Next Book
Improving what you get out of reading starts with choosing the right books. Most books are a waste of time. This article gives you two simple ideas that you can stop wasting time on books that you …
The Fragilista
They think that the reasons for something are immediately accessible to them, even if they have no clue. No matter how complex or difficult, no problem results in an “I don’t know.” …
The Antilibrary: The Hidden Value of Unread Books
The legendary Italian writer Umberto Eco had over 50,000 books in his private library. When asked why so many, he had this to say: It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you …
The Most Effective Way to Retain What You Read
One of the keys to getting smarter is to read a lot. But that’s not enough. How you read matters. But reading is only one part of the equation. It’s nearly worthless if you can’t …
What Animals Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, a cardiologist at the University of California Los Angeles, believes that her fellow human physicians have much to learn from their veterinary counterparts. These are not …
Nassim Taleb: The Big Errors of Big Data
“I am not saying here that there is no information in big data. There is plenty of information. The problem — the central issue — is that the needle comes in an increasingly larger haystack.” *** …
“The ability to inflict evil, or harm, on other people in huge numbers has grown exponentially.”
Unfortunately this is not a problem that we can wish away. In a opinion worth reading, philosopher Firmin DeBrabander writes: (in her book The Human Condition, philosopher Hannah Arendt) offers two …
Nassim Taleb and the Seven Rules of Anti-Fragility
Nassim Taleb writing in an edge.org piece. Something central, very central, is missing in historical accounts of scientific and technological discovery. The discourse and controversies focus on the …