Correcting Myths: Phony is OK, Harmful Phony is the one to watch for.

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/myths.htm

– Golden rule: one is not ethically allowed to tells others what to do unless he is doing it himself, and can suffer harm in case it turns out to be a bad advice. Predictors should be harmed by their prediction errors if these stand to hurt others. As such I cannot give advice, I can only tell readers what I do. Likewise, I cannot tell people what I predict, I can just describe my portfolio. This rule prevents people from being harmful phonies.

via Correcting Myths:… | Facebook.

I wonder why all these political/economic thinkers can’t make simple logical step, from a) “politicians are [incompetent/corrupt/self-serving, etc.]” b) they seem to have been that way across history and geography, to the obvious “we need a mechanism to gain from the [incompetence/corruption/…] of politicians”. Why do these small logical steps elude intellectuals?

via I wonder why all… | Facebook.

The press is making us mistake a mouse for an elephant, and an elephant for a mouse. Today, in the U.S., many more people are dying from overfeeding than underfeeding, many more people are killed by excessive comfort than discomfort, and for all the evil of the gun lobby, firearms harm much, much fewer people (<1%) than the corn syrup, cereal, wheat, and orange juice industries. I cannot believe that, in the 21st century, “intelligent” people would mistake the lurid for the statistical.

via Nassim Nicholas Taleb.