Shared by JohnH

HatTip to Dave Lull

He denounces “empirically blind savants,” rejects the Gaussian Belle Curve fixation, and champions a kind of mathematical or empirical skepticism.  He advances the theory of Professor Raimund Popper, who states that predicting historical events is possible if one can predict technological innovations. In a sense, the author is a Contrarian, even an Iconoclast. The Black Swan scores as it rails against the herd mentality—our need to be part of the social pattern. This, the author argues, prevents us from predicting the next Black Swan. But can we be the rugged individuals that the author asks of us? Hardly so.

And next from Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Blyth:

Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite.

Algazel (a.k.a. Al Ghazali, الغزالی), the Arab (Arabic language) philosopher who figured out “Hume’s problem” ~700 years before Hume) also spelled out Adam Smith’s “pin factory” ~650 years before Smith. I am convinced that Adam Smith merely repeated Algazel’s idea as Arab philosophers were well-known in Latin translation. This passage is from Ihya2 3loum ad-din, in which he manages to mix theology, economics, and natural order.
Note that he is one who wrote The Incoherence of Philosophers in an attack on rationalism (Aristotelian-Averroan) –still unsurpassed.

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Your success depends far less on your own skills than on the mistakes of others.