Our research did not use any complicated model with a vast number of variables, no more than someone watching an avalanche heading in their direction calls for complicated statistical models to see if they need to get out of the way.
Why should we spend taxpayer money to bailout companies who spent their cash (and often even borrowed to generate that cash) to buy their own stock (so the CEO gets optionality), instead of building a rainy day buffer? Such bailouts punish those who acted conservatively and harms them in the long run, favoring the fool and the rent-seeker.
@nntaleb This friend of mine extends great thanks to @GrantSSC and other twitterlifters for helping with this. pic.twitter.com/1OUiy8l51aPermalink 6:53 AM – 21 Mar 2020
@TMFStoffel By the end of Mar, entire country will be on lockdown. Hope it doesn’t take that long If we had listened to @yaneerbaryam, @normonics, and @nntaleb when they issued their warning (Jan 26th, I believe), this wouldn’t be necessary. IF we have guts to do it, recovery starts May 1 pic.twitter.com/eMD0hjZX2LPermalink 7:28 PM – 20 Mar 2020
@yaneerbaryam Third conversation with @nntaleb about uncertainty, certainty and what to do when there is systemic risk / what not to do when a truck is headed your way https://youtu.be/FUgHKX0clhU Permalink 2:28 PM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb typo: “instead of” contating you. Permalink 11:43 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Spyros is both an admirable man & a genuine scholar. — When you disagree with @spyrosmakrid, as a friend, you solve it w/Ouzo personally, never in public. Unlike Phil the rat @PTetlock who mocks you on the web before contacting you. https://twitter.com/spyrosmakrid/status/1241071337986277376 Permalink 11:42 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@spyrosmakrid Nobody can doubt that the world will now spend tens of trillions to fight the coronavirus while spending would have been minimal in Jan, not to mention all the lives that would have been saved and the trillions of stock market losses avoided. I must admit I was wrong. @nntaleb https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1241020475930705920 Permalink 11:37 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb This friend of mine in Atlanta is looking for a barbell to buy for immediate delivery. Permalink 10:36 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Central aspect of the PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE at the systemic level: it applies to a very narrow set of conditions, centrally: FAT TAILS from multiplicative effects, w/o circuit breakers. The problem w dangerous BS vendors like @SaPinker/@PTetlock is their half training. 1 /n Permalink 10:28 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb My paper on tail option pricing (revealing the equations at UNIVERSA) is under revision by a journal. What happened is not an “outlier” But anyone who after today still says “tail options are expensive” deserves to be put in a sanatorium. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1159545366330642434 Permalink 9:19 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb The Ioannidis problem: these pseudoempirical idiots don’t get that INSURANCE is cheaper than catastrophe, which is why under convexity you act early, quickly, and … CHEAPLY. We now spent 2 Trillion when it could have been minimal on Jan 26. https://twitter.com/BenMcCrea24/status/1241018591060856834?s=20 Permalink 8:15 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@jeremias_bosch Right, now this is it. I hated you for so long and now I come back to you @nntaleb like a child that has filled all the oil lamps in the house with water and lived in darkness, out of his own stupidity. Keep on giving them what they deserve. Never stop, never! Permalink 7:43 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@nntaleb CONVEXITY OF ECONOMIC EFFECTS FROM PANDEMICS Why the economic costs from pandemics can still grow exponentially even when infection rates slow down. We live in an overoptimized world. pic.twitter.com/L7d8jTQRvOPermalink 6:21 AM – 20 Mar 2020
@jsferjou Bravo @philippejuvin Les médecins «officiels» qui ont décidé il y a qques semaines q les tests (54€ pièce) étaient inutiles ne veulent ni se déjuger ni «engraisser les labos» (témoignage recueilli sous couvert d’anonymat) Contrairement aux masques il n’y a pourtant pas pénurie https://twitter.com/jwaintraub/status/1240717907182616577 Permalink 3:18 PM – 19 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Fucking idiot my whole point is the asymmetry: how to behave with things we can’t predict. Permalink 12:11 PM – 19 Mar 2020
@nntaleb My own review is “Ioannidis mistakes absence of evidence for evidence of absence /recommends to buy insurance AFTER the harm when we now have evidence”. Risk requires asymmetric evidence. Harry Crane has a longer review https://www.researchers.one/article/2020-03-10 Permalink 12:00 PM – 19 Mar 2020
@JackDav88 I cannot speak for Taleb, but his basic point was the Ioannidis is treating absence of evidence as evidence of absence. That’s enough to bring the entire argument down. If you are still arguing for only “data-driven” approaches under uncertainty there is nothing else I can say. Permalink 11:53 AM – 19 Mar 2020
@nntaleb 2/ Another friend lost his job in the service industry. He immediately found the substitute (what gains from quarantine) & is thriving. He asked to not release the exact industry (for now) so local people don’t take the biz away from him. Permalink 11:33 AM – 19 Mar 2020
@nntalebbot “It is a very recent disease to mistake the unobserved for the nonexistent; but some are plagued with the worse disease of mistaking the unobserved for the unobservable.” – @nntaleb Permalink 11:30 AM – 19 Mar 2020
@nntaleb MAKE LEMONADE OUT OF LEMONS! Yuuuge hero is @Jaffer22915438: given a shortage of hand sanitizers so he went looking for idle factories, found one, got the products & is now shipping 18,000 units/day. Think how instead of hunkering down you can get aggressive. #Antifragile 1/n https://twitter.com/Jaffer22915438/status/1239643066333609984 Permalink 9:23 AM – 19 Mar 2020
@joe_shipman MATH PUZZLE FOR EVERYONE EXCEPT @nntaleb He is too busy saving countries from listening to credentialed morons. You cut a circular disk of paper radially to make wedges to be taped into conical paper cups. To maximize total volume you do 2 cups; what should the angles be? Permalink 7:51 AM – 17 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Same with insurance models. Loss from hurricanes aren’t what you think are losses from hurricanes, even if your estimate of the intensity is correct. Why? Because the costs of the material goes up nonlinearly owing to (conditional) excess demand. Permalink 6:17 PM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Something UK modelers (idiots) did not get with hospitalization that we traders and modelers in nonlinearities have know since (1997): The market is a large movie theater with a small door. Same for hospital capacity. Gabish? Permalink 5:29 PM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb UK Nerds: In 2008, The B of England was managing risk w the “Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model” which assumed no banks, NO TAILS & no crises. They got insulted when I called it a fraud. Epidemiologists have similar flaws. No tails from model error. No perturbations. https://twitter.com/hancocktom/status/1239669605586604032 Permalink 4:19 PM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb So we spend >700bn on imaginary risks from listening to IYI geopoliticians & journos when in fact the true enemy is a virus you pick up doing high five with the bartender. Time to fire the Foreign Affairs/Think Tank establishment, close political “science”depts & reset. Reset. Permalink 12:18 PM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb I laughed so hard people I drank the wrong way & started coughing which scared everyone around me! The “BS Busting” operation seeking to eradicate statistical BS. pic.twitter.com/xnOUKZOdTkPermalink 10:09 AM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Just a reminder that “Risk Parity” is a scam. Permalink 9:59 AM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb The scoop: @realDonaldTrump’s staff relied on OUR memo from Jan 26 (@normonics & @yaneerbaryam), which gave solid grounds to ignore “academic” naive forecasting models estimating low impact from the China virus. #PrecautionaryPrinciple https://twitter.com/ProfMJCleveland/status/1239399258689806336 Permalink 9:14 AM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb The place where: Ramses II, Nebuchadnezzar, Esarhaddon, Caracalla, Napoleon III, etc. left commemorative Stellae. Preserve Nahrl Kalb! Help protect the site from real-estate fraudsters. https://twitter.com/byzance11/status/1238864209636659202 Permalink 6:44 AM – 16 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Marks my words: 1) @R_Thaler & @CassSunstein will go down as open dangers to society, 2) Thaler’s models have already been debunked so if he is ever remembered, he will be remembered for his fake research. https://twitter.com/R_Thaler/status/1239284574909165568 Permalink 1:28 PM – 15 Mar 2020
@nntaleb So the methodology (with heuristics we can even teach at #RWRI) is figuring out potential model impact from simple nonlinearity. Alas, many epi models turn into pure hogwash. Nice representation, but unreliable for decision making. pic.twitter.com/hJlgAMqWVIPermalink 1:22 PM – 15 Mar 2020
@TalebWisdom “You are free in inverse proportion to the number of people to whom you can’t say “fuck you”.” – @nntaleb Permalink 1:06 PM – 15 Mar 2020
@NonMeek Today’s #Offshorecomic. A #RWRI Sunday strip with @nntaleb & @financequant & Raphael Douady. This strip is included in my newest mini-book Nr. 3 available here: https://gum.co/IJgDY Previous buyers will get a free update per e-mail ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/1ZYkbSkHUf”> pic.twitter.com/1ZYkbSkHUf Permalink 8:42 AM – 15 Mar 2020
@nntaleb *My profession=finding holes in models by IYIs I selected SIMPLEST SIR modelto check sensitivity to parametrization/convexity to error, common w/3 nonlinear ODEs. Every refinement to nonlinearM creates EXPLOSION of errors,curseofdimensionality (Yan & Chowellfor improvements) pic.twitter.com/NvDmy9Qy1kPermalink 8:18 AM – 15 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Here is my code, in case I made mistakes. It’s from the elementary SIR differential equations. pic.twitter.com/RUfrTNSSszPermalink 7:02 AM – 15 Mar 2020
@nntaleb UK Policy is a speculative lunacy. Playing with the toy standard epidemiological SIR model. We have no idea how model parameters cause a yuuuge variation in ourcomes. We don’t even know the central parameters/whether stochastic. Try to add perturbations for “herd immunity”. pic.twitter.com/fTJ7pWRlaTPermalink 5:47 AM – 15 Mar 2020
@wael_atallah Thank God there is still some sense in the world! Chocolate Hummus not selling despite the panic. pic.twitter.com/2vQzOJXTVuPermalink 1:07 PM – 14 Mar 2020
@nntaleb UK Herd Immunity & ANTIFRAGILITY What drove me bananas is some imbecile who said “it was an antifragile strategy”. NOTHING can be antifragile unless you remove the left tail. I go bananas when people cite me backwards. Permalink 10:42 AM – 14 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Joe Norman, @yaneerbaryam & I did not “react” on Jan 26 with out paper. We had been preparing for the statement since the poor understanding of Ebola’s tail risk. This is from Nov 2018. pic.twitter.com/YnG903XBTVPermalink 10:08 AM – 14 Mar 2020
@nntaleb I am a risk analyst & probability modeler. Not a virologist. I assumed reinfection possible because of lack of evidence. But if virologists (like this UK a @TheCrisk) state that reinfection is common for other Coronaviruses (this one has too short a life), then CASE CLOSED. pic.twitter.com/MW6kHPTc27Permalink 9:56 AM – 14 Mar 2020
@nntaleb UK’s “herd immunity” risk-blind strategy hinges on unempirical psycholophasters’ theory abt “crisis fatigue” & “nudging” BS. Assumes 1) no reinfection 2) hospitals will not be overwhelmed (w secondary deaths), 3) disease must return 4) no vaccine is coming Total IYI Lunacy. Permalink 9:33 AM – 14 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Apparently there is ستر in Arabic could be cover but so uncommon that I wonder where it is used. Permalink 2:24 PM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb (Proverbs 27.12) Note the Lebanese “setra” from נסתר (apparently not in Arabic); unless we find an Aramaic equivalen it would be Phoenician. Permalink 2:05 PM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb יב ערום ראה רעה נסתר פתאים עברו נענשו In Lebanese (literal): L 3aa2l lamma yshuf l khatar baddo l stra, L basit bkammel wbyékela In Lebanese (saying) Alf jabén w la alla yer7amo. #PrecautionaryPrinciple Permalink 1:53 PM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Only way to counter the fools at 10 Downing is for team w/@yaneerbaryam & @normonics : 1-Pressure US gov to block travel from UK 2-Issue guidelines for UK citizens to protect themselves from both corona & the gov of Boris-the-dupe @BorisJohnson 3- Show errors in epi studies Permalink 9:48 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb About everybody seems to be working under the hypothesis that those who recover from the virus are permanently in the SAME condition as those who never got it. Permalink 7:10 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb SKIN IN THE GAME All those in the UK who are in favor of the “herd immunity” BS should self-infect with the virus. Includes ALL decision-makers, science advisors and “Boris no Precaution”. Now. #SkinintheGame is about filtering those with systemic danger out of the system. Permalink 6:23 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@neilchriss Of course I prefer 90% doors locked to no doors locked. I also prefer Russian roulette with one bullet vs two. Justifying a bad alternative by presenting worse ones is precisely why most people suck at risk. Permalink 6:07 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb If you don’t like my style, go follow the Washington Post. Never lecture someone on her or his style! pic.twitter.com/C7od3zVZH3Permalink 5:14 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb 5) Fundamentally, you don’t take decisions based on what is *likely* to work (although with these behavioral nudge idiots it’s likely to not work), but based on the systemic costs of the error. Permalink 5:09 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Fundamentally, you don’t take decisions based on what is *likely* to work (although with these behavioral nudge idiots it’s likely to not work), but based on the systemic costs of the error. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1238421868778004480 Permalink 5:08 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@Premysl_The_Man Over 1000 volunteers for http://endcoronavirus.org will fight this. Lower connectivity, now! @yaneerbaryam Permalink 4:23 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb 4) On Jan 26 when ~1000 infected people we issued our warning on how to handle the pandemic: take no chances, stay ahead of it. Precautionary measures based on symmetry of errors. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1221486205847646208?s=20 Permalink 4:19 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb 3) You don’t board a plane w/safety w/p-value of .05 (likely to be miscomputed). If they used their “scientific” approach to risk management no pilot would be alive today. Risk require much more reliability than “evidence based” methods which are backward-looking & flawed. Permalink 4:14 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb UK NUDGE UNIT 1) Just as before the crisis of 2008-9 I was shouting that economic “experts” were no experts, we will sorely discover that behavioral “experts” are even more unreliable. 2) Even psychs admit behavioral papers replicate <½, that is the reliability of astrology. Permalink 4:09 AM – 13 Mar 2020
@nntaleb h/t @sothisispietro Permalink 6:49 PM – 12 Mar 2020
@okeyego The point of panic is to prevent the virus from spreading in the first place, imbecile, not to help those already infected with surviving. Permalink 10:00 AM – 12 Mar 2020
@normonics Dear @GovChrisSununu Please see my letter below as well the note we wrote in January that drove the travel restrictions that have bought us time. I submitted this letter on your website as well so you have my contact info there. Please don’t hesitate. Best, Joe pic.twitter.com/YQsEC83kXtPermalink 8:52 AM – 12 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Remember that the US is not a Republic but (still) a Federation. The president can control foreign access, but not what happens in the States/communes. Some States such as NY are ahead of the game; they even ordered their own testing kits. Others so so. #Localism Permalink 8:00 AM – 12 Mar 2020
@nntaleb 2) Psychologists themselves own that >55% of their results don’t replicate. I’ve shown that 100% of what they do in fat tailed domains is exactly backward. https://www.researchers.one/article/2020-01-21 Permalink 7:12 AM – 12 Mar 2020
@nntaleb SOLUTION: market expects +/- 11.3% swing. This is a classic confusion because operators don’t understand what “volatility” means. Just as psychologists who deal with “correlation” and p-values don’t know what these metrics mean. pic.twitter.com/pLqoArwyh6Permalink 4:55 AM – 12 Mar 2020
@nntaleb OK, Trump woke up. He understood that the solution is acting NOW in reducing connectivity. 30 days travel ban from Europe is perfect. Let the states ban public transportation/close all gatherings for 30 days. Permalink 6:20 PM – 11 Mar 2020
@nntaleb What psychologists like this dangerous fellow @vaughanbell call “evidence” is something that fails 55-60% of the time, and has a p~ .05. With a p~.05 no pilot/flight attendant would be alive. Permalink 6:10 PM – 11 Mar 2020
@nntaleb CORONA TRICKS Friends pls add suggestions No fasting >20h No bread (can’t disinfect) unless you bake it yslf No sushi/raw meat No intense exercise. DL 80% max, at risk of detraining No public transp., no valet parking No Thaler/Nudge Unit No bars; if you must No nonalchlc bev Permalink 2:18 PM – 11 Mar 2020
@nntaleb ATTENTION Friends in the UK Beware the recommendations of the “Nudge Unit” and “evidence based” BS. They are more risk creators than mitigators. Learn from Korea, Singapore. In the US, Governor Cuomo is doing the right thing. This is the outline of my paper “nudge sinister”. pic.twitter.com/vtciWmMBaTPermalink 12:56 PM – 11 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Kluuuuuuelessly dangerous. The fellow @vaughanbell is a psychologist. Invokes “evidence based”: you need “evidence” of a crash before putting your seat belt on. The U.K. is doomed by government listening to “tenured” psychologists and nudge operators, like Thaler & other idiots. https://twitter.com/vaughanbell/status/1237743124107100163 Permalink 10:18 AM – 11 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Fucking IMBECILE, this was never presented as a “prediction” but as a warning about the fragility of SOME systems as they globalize. Permalink 1:22 PM – 10 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Lesson: Those who panicked early don’t have to panic today. Permalink 11:01 AM – 9 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Explaining “Black Swans” and their connection to Fat Tails in new technical book. pic.twitter.com/SuaW8JZjm7Permalink 8:34 AM – 9 Mar 2020
@paulportesi You just haven’t seen the other side of the distribution. @nntaleb This quote has always stuck with me. Its elegance and power. I never forgot it. Well… We are seeing the other side of the distribution. Permalink 7:13 PM – 8 Mar 2020
@nntaleb The great Cato-the-wise, Cato Sapiens, Cato Censorius, or (in Staten Island, Cato-no-nonsense) would be turning in his grave & characteristically seething with anger at the misuse of his name by that imbecilic institute. PS-As we explained,deaths *lag* infections because…time https://twitter.com/CatoInstitute/status/1236720095205957634 Permalink 12:24 PM – 8 Mar 2020
@nntaleb (No, nothing chemical. They are spraying Greek-Orthodox holy water.) Permalink 9:29 AM – 8 Mar 2020
@nntaleb The gym in Amioun (my ancestral village). Yet no virus in the area. Maybe the precautionary mindset in the genes (or, perhaps from the local olive oil). I guess I should go there. pic.twitter.com/R6m9ZuMEfaPermalink 9:20 AM – 8 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Solution. Joe Shipman tried (and failed) to ruin my weekend. (deleted previous owing to typos ) pic.twitter.com/Q3tFAeSjr5Permalink 8:06 AM – 8 Mar 2020
@nntaleb Beware Journalistic Fallacies Italy is NOT “risking” the economy to fight the virus. It is lowering the risk for the economy by fighting the virus. If the coronavirus proved something, it is that the half-learned (journalist, psychologist) is the greatest danger for mankind. pic.twitter.com/tIhXsIZRpbPermalink 7:15 AM – 8 Mar 2020
@Untiroalaire What pisses IYIs off is realizing how untaggable @nntaleb is, while their whole lives have revolved around labelling others. Aim for untaggability. Permalink 5:05 AM – 8 Mar 2020
@koushikp Unfortunately despite all your efforts, many haven’t understood the concept of limiting factor. The capacity of the healthcare system isn’t unlimited. So the mortality rate isn’t a linear number as being spewed out across many IYIs across the internet. Permalink 6:41 PM – 7 Mar 2020