THE DECENTRALIZATION OF DEITY. If you believe in decentralized bottom-up organic systems, and make an opposition between naturalistic systems and organized hierarchical ones, then take a fresh look at ancient paganism, and compare it to both monotheism or atheism. Paganism is about the decentralization and diversification of deity; monotheism strives for some purity and concentration, getting rid of disorderly and incompatible tenets. Paganism is naturally tolerant and syncretist. Thus, monotheists and atheists are way too similar, especially in their intolerance of other religions (and each other). In that sense, atheism is to monotheism what monotheism is to paganism.

This said, Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism have retained quite a bit of pagan beliefs, though not the tolerance. Even monotheism was not that pure and only became so progressively: in the early centuries, before differenciation communities would use the same house as synagogue, church, and Baal-Jupiter-Other temple (evidence: Doura Europos). In Lebanon, people used to change religion to satisfy a vow.

(Thanks Vince Pomal for the idea about distributed deities)

via THE DECENTRALIZATION OF DEITY. If you… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.

HOW TO MAXIMIZE SUBSTANCE. Academic production is now up to 99% housekeeping, chickens**t, dealing with referees and perfecting commas, marketing, and only 1% substance. So trying the exact opposite with the following mode; wrote a paper, the shortest possible one on the idea. Put on FB here for 24 hours for crowdsourcing correction (Carl Fakhry found the math typos and inconsistencies in notation). Submitted the first draft to ArXiv, where it was posted a with day delay. Kept some typos in the first version (such as “reponse” instead of “response”) to signal I don’t give a f**k, that this is not “job market science”.

If the idea has merit, it could eventually circulate perhaps be even plagiarized, and this may even take years and years. If it lacks in rigor it will certainly die, as there is no formalism to hide the BS.

All in all the non-substancel part of the process turned out to be < 1 hour.

Now to other, possibly, deeper things.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6695
[1307.6695] Where Do Thin Tails Come From?

via HOW TO MAXIMIZE SUBSTANCE. Academic… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.