You can recognize most people at the sound of their voices but very, very few at their vocabulary and sentences.
– We are biologically so idiosyncratic and differentiated: out of 7 billion it is rare to find two persons who are exactly alike. But when you listen to conversation, opinions, and speeches people become almost identical to some group or a consensus, as if they didn’t want to be themselves any more.
– This is even more striking when you read articles and books. It is so hard to find something *not* generic, something that is not a linear combination of other things. It is even worse with academic papers (most academic papers are even worse… commoditized… I stop here).
– So when you look at yourself in the mirror remember that what’s inside your cranium should be a step closer in differentiation to what’s outside of it.

You can recognize most people at the sound of… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

The problem with the idea of “learning from one’s mistakes” is that most of what people call mistakes aren’t mistakes.

via The problem with the idea of “learning from… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

People are much less interested in what you are trying to show them than in what you are trying to hide.

via People are much less interested in what you are… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of “scientistic sucker problems” (similar to, say, transfat, thalidomide) that satisfy the following:
A – DENIAL OF COMPLEXITY: Something foreign to the human body or nature-as-a-complex-system was introduced (in the sense of not being part of the long term history of the process),
B – Benefits (though small) were visible and trumpeted,
C -MISTAKING ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE FOR EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE: “Scientific” *evidence of absence* of harm was presented. (Consider tobacco).
D – SCIENTISM: Arguments against skeptics were presented a la Michael Shermer as being “against science”.
E – MORAL HAZARD: consider tobacco’s lobbying to show safety on “scientific” grounds.
These cases of small visible benefits and large hidden harm (particularly delayed) are prime cases of fragility (thick left tail, thin right tail).
The aim is to integrate these human sucker problems into the general *precautionary principle*. In the complex domain, one cannot predict adverse consequences beyond small steps, hence the idea of countering history (Bar Yam).
Please do not stray from the topic, which is to build a historical list, in the physical/health (not socioeconomic) domain. This is not a debate: rather a catalogue.

Friends, let us build a list of historical cases… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.