nntaleb: Chap from the nw essay on ROBUSTNESS & FRAGILITY (2nd Ed of TH BLCK SWN in US/UK, sprt bk in Eu/Asia) http://TwitPWR.com/GmF/ pdf download [Fixed]

Loved this- really, so many of our mistakes seem to lead simply from the poor choice of words.
Pg.320:

For consider the opposite: differences without a distinction. They can be brutally misleading. People use the same term, measuring, for measuring a table using a ruler, and for measuring risk—when the second is a forecast, or something of the sort. And the word measuringconveys an illusion of knowledge that can be severely distorting: we will see that we are psychologically very vulnerable to terms used and how things are framed. So if we used measuringfor the table, and forecastingfor risk, we would have fewer turkeys blowing up from Black Swans.

For those of us who have been following NNT’s Tweets, this will sound familiar.

So I am currently torn between (a) my desire to spend time mulling my ideas in European cafés and in the tranquility of my study, or looking for someone who can have a conversation while walking slowly in a nice urban setting, and (b) the feeling of obligation to engage in activism to ro- bustify society, by talking to uninteresting people and being immersed in the cacophony of the unaesthetic journalistic and media world, going to Washington to watch phonies in suits walking around the streets, having to defend my ideas while making an effort to be smooth and hide my dis- respect.