Category Archives: Facebook

Precaution, GMOs, Pvalue, Vlad Putin, Bill Easterly, John Grays, Bent Flyvbjerg, MedNexus, Turkey/s

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FRIDAY SYMPOSIUM (Facebook)
Two young (motivated) friends have started a project to Uberize medicine and medical information, removing noise from medical search. I am running with them a (sort of) symposium here on the idea.

Please comment. Be tough, unrelentlessly inquisitive.
The project is very important *if* it allows the right transparency without interference from the big corporations. As you recall from the New York Times files, we have evidence that Monsanto discussed with a shill (Folta) the manipulation of entries on WebMD. Will access to multiple sources protect us?

So please ask them such questions as 1) how this system ensures independence, 2) whether they have the right filters, 3) what you like or don’t like about it, etc.

Anything that bypasses the middleman is good for us, if done properly.

MedNexus

http://www.mednexus.io

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/672077873721798656

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REMOVE SKIN IN THE GAME. (Facebook)
Recall from Antifragile and earlier discussions here that a doctor’s answer would be different if you put (emotionally speaking) his skin in the game by asking him “what would you do?” instead of “what should I do?”

The opposite works equally well. A trick I did use as a trader: under pressure, to remove the emotional burden and the loss of mental clarity, you imagine that you are someone else in the situation. That someone else should be some precise person, in flesh and blood, say X. What should X do now? buy more? liquidate, etc. It applies to any decision, say “should X buy this house?”

You can use the strategy in a lot of dilemmas. Replace yourself with X, and ask: “should X resign because of ethics?”

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/670939041576173568

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https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/669951175534448640

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/669941431423918082

A SUPPLEMENT TO OUR PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE AND THE GMO PROBLEM: P v/s NP approach (Facebook)

Now our examination of GMO problem is taking us in an interesting territory. The initial work was essentially probabilistic — since few people understand both probability and fat tails, it was counterintuitive to many “scientists” (most scientists can’t even get P-values correctly to understand fat tails).

Luckily there is a huge crowd of computer scientists and mathematicians involved or familiar with the so-called P/NP problem and algorithmic complexity in general. They immediately get that:

1) selective breeding is different from insertion of remote genes from a combinatorial standpoint and how nature has to tinker in close, not remote space (genes from vicinity without going very far) to ensure stability

2) understanding the impact on a high dimensional environment of trangenics/GMOs is not possible

also not covered here, that genetics are neat to impress people with science but we will have a hard time understanding how things interact, and so long as P !=NP we will NEVER get things through genetics that we can check via experience and long term testing.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50282823/PPAlgo2.pdf

GMOs, Putin, Downloading, Piketty, Dupire, Monotheism, Doctorow, Daesh, Cossaks

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https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/669595838721744896

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Retweeted by NNT

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/668463106058805248

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THE ETHICS OF DEBATING (Facebook)
or
HOW TO NOT BE A CHARLATAN
(revision of earlier discussion)

You can attack what a person *said* or what the person *meant*. The former is more sensational. The mark of a charlatan is to defend his position or attack a critic by focusing on *some* of his/her specific statement (“look at what he said”) rather than attacking his position (“look at what he means” or, more broadly, “look at what he stands for”), the latter of which requires a broader knowledge of the proposed idea. Note that the same applies to the interpretation of religious texts.

Given that it is impossible for anyone to write a perfectly rationally argued document without a segment that, out of context, can be transformed by some dishonest copywriter to appear totally absurd and lend itself to sensationalization, politicians and charlatans hunt for these segments. “Give me a few lines written by any man and I will find enough to get him hung” goes the saying attributed to Richelieu, Voltaire, Talleyrand, a vicious censor during the French revolution phase of terror, and others.

I take any violation by an intellectual as a disqualification, some type of disbarment –same as stealing is a disbarment in commercial life. It is actually a violation of journalistic ethics, but not enforced outside of main fact-checking newspapers.[Note 1]

Take for instance the great Karl Popper: he always started with an unerring representation of the opponents positions, often exhaustive, as if he were marketing them as his own ideas, before proceededing to systematically destroy them. Or take Hayek’s diatribes “contra” Keynes and Cambridge: at no point there is a single line misrepresenting Keynes or an overt attempt at sensationalizing*. [**I have to say that it helped that people were too intimidated by Keynes’ intellect to trigger his ire.]

Read Aquinas, written 8 centuries ago, and you always see sections with QUESTIO->PRAETERIA, OBJECTIONES, SED CONTRA, etc. describing with a legalistic precision the positions being challenged and looking for a flaw in them and a compromise. That was the practice by intellectuals.

Twitter lends itself to these sensationalized framing: someone can extract the most likely to appear absurd and violating the principle of charity. So we get a progressive debasing of intellectual life with the rise of the media, needing some sort of policing.

Note the associated reliance of *straw man* arguments by which one not only extracts a comment but *also* provides an interpretation, promoting misinterpretation. I consider *straw man* no different from theft.

COMMENTS
I just subjected the *principle of charity* as presented in philosopy to the Lindy test: it is only about 60 years old. Why? Does it meant that it is transitory? Well, we did not need it explicitly before before discussions were never about slogans and snapshots but synthesis of a given position.

An answer came as follows. Bradford Tuckfield (earlier post) wrote: ” I think this principle is much older than 60 years. Consider in the book of Isaiah, chapter 29, verse 21: he denounces the wicked who “make a man an offender for a word,” implying that people were focusing on specific words rather than positions, and that this is a bad practice.”
So it seems that the Lindy effect wins. In fact as with other things, if the principle of charity had to become a principle, it is because an old practice had to have been abandoned.

Thanks Tredag Brajovic for the Richelieu story.

[Note 1: Journos seem to make the mistake but freak out when caught –they have fragile reputations and tenuous careers. I was misinterpreted in my positions on climate change in a discussion with David Cameron in 2009 (presenting them backwards) and when I complained, the editors were defensive and very apologetic, the journos went crazy when I called them “unethical”, some begged me to retract my accusation.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

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After a 800K circulation the previous post about the root of the problem was picked up by Politico. (Facebook)

http://www.politico.eu/…/the-saudi-wahhabis-are-the-real-f…/

The Saudi Wahhabis are the real foe
We must take our fight to the preachers and financiers of terror.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/666292678213136386

Paris, Wahabis, Salafi, Homeopathy, Beirut

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Since 2001 our policy for fighting Islamic terrorists has been, (Facebook) to put it politely, missing the elephant in the room, sort of like treating symptoms and completely missing the disease. Policymakers and slow-thinking bureaucrats stupidly let terrorism grow by ignoring the roots. We lost a generation: someone who went to grammar school in Saudi Arabia (our “ally”) after September 11 is now an adult, indocrinated into believing and supporting Salafi violence, hence encouraged to finance it –while we got distracted by the use of complicated weapons and machinery.
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Even worse the Wahabis have accelerated their brainwashing of East and West Asians with their madrassas, thanks to high oil revenues.
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So instead of invading Iraq, blowing up Jihadi John and individual terrorists, thus causing a multiplication of these people, it would have been be easier to focus on the source of all problems: the Wahabi/Salafi education and promotion of intolerance by which a Shiite or a Yazidi or a Christian are deviant people.
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If we absolutely need to put people in Guantanamo, it is the Salafi preachers, Wahabi clerics, not just the people swayed by their teaching. And if we need to correct Saudi problems, we need to start by sending to them OUR preachers, educating them into tolerance, explaining the very concept of the separation of church and state. Or, better even, encourage Muslim preachers who promote religious tolerance (laka dinak wa li dini) — instead of seeing them ostracized.
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And if you find violence unavoidable, it should be directed at the Saudi and Qatari funders of violence, as well as the Salafi theorists, rather than the young performers.
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PS Beware the usual ISIS crypto-sympathizer who sort of “explains” (that is, justifies) what happened (intentionally killing civilians) with some other Western event that can go all the way to the crusades… Otherwise it is “biased”. You cannot condemn ISIS without at the same time trying to be “balanced”? Who are they fooling? This is the technique of bundling problems that can be treated independently and you need to learn to deal with them by forcing them to discuss the problem of ISIS on its own.

https://freedomhouse.org/…/saudi-arabias-curriculum-intoler…

Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance | Freedom House
Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom released a report analyzing a set of Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks in use during the current academic year in Islamic studies courses for elementary and secondary students. The textbooks promote an ideology of hatred toward people, including Musli…
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Delenda est Salafi-stan. (Facebook)

(Background: Cato the ancient, for years, kept starting or ending his speeches at the Roman Senate with variations around “Delenda est Cartago”, *Carthage must be destroyed*. Until the Roman fleet went and destroyed Carthage, ending its threat.)
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Comment 1: Since Sep 11 no focus to cut the SOURCE of terrorism: Salafi funding of terror & intolerance in schools (Qatari & Saudi money); ISIS oil.
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Comment 2: Someone who went to school on Sept 11 in Saudi Arabia, now age 18 is brainwashed by the system to believe that all Shiites, Christians, and other minorities are deviant beings whose death doesn’t count.

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The Saudi king is shocked that his own Wahabi intolerance …kills people. Murderer! https://t.co/aahF4pKI2M

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 14, 2015
14 y after Sept 11, teenagers in Saudi Arabia are schooled to believe Shiites, Christians, & others are deviants whose death doesn’t count.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 14, 2015
Never take an advice from a salesperson https://t.co/YZrZfFHMgx

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
I don’t know if the association is justified, but it takes greed to cancel the effect of corporate bullying. pic.twitter.com/XH7EVqzgQG

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
Superstitions can be rational if 1) harmless, 2) lower your anxiety, 3) prevent you from listening to forecasts by economists & BS “experts”

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
Skin in the game rule: after every tragic event in Beirut, never talk about it without visiting. Was there last week, going back in 2 weeks.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 12, 2015

Celibacy, Data, Inequality and Wealth, Kilkenomics

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CELIBACY and SKIN IN THE GAME (Facebook)
Imagine working for a corporation that produces secret harm to the collective, in hiding cancer-causing risk which kills the thousands but is not (yet) fully visible. You can alert the public, but would automatically lose your job and there is a gamble that the company’s evil scientists would disprove you, causing additional humiliation. You know the history of whisteblowers and realize that, even if you end up vindicated, it may take time for the truth to emerge over the noise created by corporate shills. You have nine children, a sick parent, and as a result of the stand, the children’s future is compromised. College hopes are gone. You feel severely conflicted between the harm to the collective and guilt from harm to your progeny. Thousands are dying from the hidden poisoining by the corporation. You would like to be a hero but it comes at a huge cost.

Society likes saints and moral heroes to be celibate so they do not have family pressures and be forced into dilemmas of needing to compromise their sense of ethics to feed their children. Some martyrs like Socrates had young children (although he was in his seventies), and overcame the dilemma at their expense. Many can’t.

The fact that people with families are vulnerable has been remarkably exploited in history. The Samurai had to leave their families in Edo as hostages, thus guaranteeing to the authorities that they would not take positions against the rulers. The Romans and Huns partook of the practice of trading permanent “visitors”, the children of rulers on both sides who grew up at the courts of the foreign nation in a form of gilded captivity. The Ottomans relied on janissaries who were extracted as babies from Christian families and, having no family (or no contact with their family), were entirely devoted to the Sultan.

Etc.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/664871621354721284

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/664484066977292293

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/664159993617391618

INEQUALITY AND WEALTH (Facebook)
In the more rural past, wealthy people were not as exposed to other persons of their class. They didn’t have the pressure to keep up with other wealthy persons and compete with them. The wealthy stayed within their region, surrounded with people who depended on them, say a Lord on his property. Except for the occasional season in the cities, their social life was quite vertical.
It is in mercantile urban environments that socializing within social class took place. And, over time, with industrialization the rich started moving to cities or suburbs surrounded with other people of similar –but not very similar –condition. Hence they needed to keep up with each other, racing on a treadmill.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/664086988811862016

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/663659172756606976

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/663643237459062784

Thanks @Kilkenomics. Only economics conference without uptight and constipated technocrats. https://t.co/TBxSz2izs5
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 10, 2015

Fascinating talk on #BlackSwan #antifragile @nntaleb – great to meet you @kilkenomics – great insights @davidmcw pic.twitter.com/LIbzXnGjm6— Shauna O’Boyle (@Shaunaob) November 10, 2015

Jotted down at Kilkenomics why neuroscience, evolutionary theory, behavioral econ, genetics, etc. are full of BS https://t.co/DZhn9cEkh4— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 9, 2015

Enthralled by @peterfrankopan ‘s book The Silk Roads and by @davidmcw ‘s @kilkenomics pic.twitter.com/ecvGEXGdXd
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 9, 2015

Fooled by Researchers https://t.co/lxOaNOWnwP
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 12, 2015

Becoming an academic if you like the pursuit of knowledge is like becoming an airport mechanic if you like flying. #uninterestingdetails
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 11, 2015

Here is the sheet of simulations where I show to be skeptical of big data, DNA promises, etc. IN PROGRESS. https://t.co/nEfq1EgSpg
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 10, 2015

Irish Beer, Red Meat, Gamma Functions, Gini, Life Expectancy, Kuala Lampur, Data

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https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/662680049863237632

There is a debate around the perceived toxicity of red meat and bacon. (Facebook)
Regrettably few researchers get the point that you need to include *frequency of intake* in the testing rather than just the average intake (a point belabored in Antifragile). Everything nonlinear depends on second order effects.

How often matters much more than how much.

Populations in history have tended to eat meat irregularly ( the Greek ate meat only on sacrifice days) but like lions and other hunters/carnivores they gorge on it during these episodes. Orthodox Christians are vegan around 200 days a year, but they feast on fatty meat during feast days.
Having taken a look at the paper I can safely say that the authors missed the point. The report is based on statistical confounders.

Incidentally Monsanto missed the point with the crops that are genetically engineered to produce their own pesticides. As these crops release the pesticides continously, rather than by bursts, they are effective enough to represent a risk to your health, but not enough to harm the pests.
Jensen’s inequality, once again.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/662627962248896512

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/662256614078967808

Many people keep boasting that we tend to live longer than our ancestors using the misinterpreted measure of life expectancy. (Facebook)

Life expectancy doesn’t tell you how LONG people live.
It mostly tells you how many children fail to survive. So reducing childhood mortality when it is high extends life expectancy much more than efforts aiming at making people live longer. For instance bringing childhood mortality down from 30% to what we have today, close to 0, extends life expectancy by about 25 years –which is the bulk of the gains since the middle ages.

If you want to really measure how long people live, use the expectancy at 40.

For those into these things, this is the perfect illustration of the beautiful concept of ergodicity.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/661842761163739136