Category Archives: Feeds

Nassim Nicholas Taleb and the Fallacy of Truth « Jeremiadus

Shared by JohnH

HatTip to Dave Lull.

For Taleb, viewing human decision-making in high-risk environments, the central problem is not the risk but the human evaluating the risk. We masquerade opinion as fact – we hide our frailty as decision-makers behind pride and arrogance. We employ bad methods because our standing in the world depends upon creating epistemic methods and frameworks of knowledge that advantage us (and disadvantage others). This makes Taleb angry, because people with power and influence – experts, practitioners, and pundits – do more than anyone to perpetuate encourage fraudulent and dishonest beliefs about fractal risk that harm millions of innocent people.