ON OVERCOMPENSATION -One trick when giving lectures. I have been told by conference organizers and other rationalistic, empirically challenged fellows that one needs to be clear, deliver a crisp message, maybe even dance on the stage to get the attention of the crowd. Or speak with the fake articulations of T.V. announcers. Charlatans try sending authors to “speech school”. None of that. I find it better to whisper, not shout. Better to slightly unaudible, less clear. Acquire a strange accent. One should make the audience work to listen, and switch to intellectual overdrive. In spite of these rules of thumb by the conference industry, there is no evidence that demand for a speaker is linked to the TV-announcer quality of his lecturing. And the most powerful, at a large gathering, tends to be the one with enough self-control to avoid raising his voice to be noticed, and make others listen to him.
This was posted on The Spectator concerning their article, although I’ll post it here, too, John.
I. Black Swan blindness: people say the crisis was a Black Swan and other Black Swans retrospectively, after the facts, nevertheless Black Swans are fundamentally unpredictable, intractable, and rare otherwise such event wouldn’t be categorize as a Black Swan, period.
II. Printing money may lead to a tipping point, say, 90 percent nothing happens, but in the 10 percent that something does happen the consequences will be massive.
III. Too big is concave to small probabilities, therefore more risky.
IV. One can benefit from positive Black Swans as long as the errors are contain, trial and error, bricolage, hormesis and serendipitous exposure; chasing the Dragon, so to speak, Mr. Taleb’s new work further elaborates.
V. Scandal of prediction: you can’t predict social and economical variables without huge errors, in fact seeing into the future is mostly a charlatan business, and so is seeing into the past, too.
VI. Debt fragilizes because it gives you confidence that the world is liner, or that nothing new will happen, is a fragile bet on an opaque ambivalent ought to be.
VII. Properties of complex systems change with scale, similar to fractal geometry, therefore should be treated differently.
VIII. Short term profits drive companies to maximum fragility and risk, it takes wisdom to see the long run.
IX. Big is ugly; small is beautiful.
X. I hope Cameron understands philosopher Taleb, and implements his ideas, he probably could do so much just by focusing on fiscal responsibility; no bail-outs to big businesses, no matter how much they talk; controlling debt by breaking anything too big or turn debt into equity, and banning short term bonuses, and of course thinking about his re-election to be leader of the lackluster conservative Tories, surely he paces in on around 10 Downing Street wondering whether his election as Prime Minister is a little bit worth it, surely.
Nice! You’re really getting the lingo down David.