We finally summarized both our violence paper and our methodology for “Fooled by Randomness” under fat tails. We explain in the simplest possible terms what is noise and what is “significant” and why journos such as Pinker are fooled by “drops in violence”. (3/2/16)
The file is at:
www.fooledbyrandomness.com/significance.pdf
Background: one economist, Michael Spagat, commented on us vs. Pinker in a journal called significance, making eggregious errors of significance. The mean NEEDS to include the tails.
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THE “ENEMIES OF THE GOOD”
1) Hillary Monsanto-Malmaison (a la Tony Blair, used public office for subsequent enrichment; the reverse is far better; agent of the crony clepto-bureaucrato Washington order. Unlike overt corruption, this insidious form (legal not ethical) is the most morally damaging to our fabric).
2) The Wahabi regime of Saudi Barbaria and their friends.
3) Agrochemical and pharma shills.
4) People increasing rather than decreasing ruin problems while claiming to “help”, i.e., with enough pseudoknowledge of probability to cause damage (a la Cass Sunstein who find it irrational for people to worry about ruin)… (2/29/16)
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Apparently we did OK with our inaugural Real World Risk Mini-Certificate. Five days of lecturing.
We managed to drill the essence of the problems with graphs only, with examples and concepts, no equations. And it worked! For instance, Zari Rachev who was the doctoral student of the great Kolmogorov was simpler than any lecturer I have ever seen on probability, could get points simple enough for school students.
I lectured a bit more than 6/10, but most other instructors were present in debates, with constant commentary from Robert Frey and teasing from Raphael Douady. At many times the discussions were like stand-up comedy.
I focused in my part in showing that almost all of probabilistic decision problems, convexity (antifragility) and all can be linked to a simple logical asymmetry that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and how the point gets lost as people become semi-sophisticated. From that you get almost everything in a tight systematic view.
This is the first time I’ve worked hard in 15 years. I realized the trick: had no coffee. It works.
The next seminar is June 6.
http://www.realworldrisk.com
[NOTE We are assuming that given that these comments were on public sites (Twitter) we do not need the hassle of the permission/approval process. But if the author objects we would remove immediately.] (2/27/16)
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Today a big chunk of erudition, curiosity, imagination, and intellectual playfulness has left the planet.
Rest in Peace, Umberto Eco. (2/20/16)
