Dr. Nassim Taleb at LDE 2015, Lebanese Diaspora Energy, Published on Jun 21, 2015
Dr. Nassim Taleb at LDE 2015
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Tag Archives: Lebanon
Some parts of Lebanon are greener today than they were a generation ago…
Some parts of Lebanon are greener today than they were a generation ago. People in Lebanon keep bemoaning the degradation of the environment, overbuilding, etc. These are true, but, outside of urban areas, parts of the countryside seem greener today than 120 years ago, something obvious when we look at old pictures (and paintings). This picture is the back country between my ancestral village (Amioun) and the Mediterranean (Shekka), taken during the winter. When I was a child, the hills were completely barren. The greenplan planted trees 35 years ago: this is the payoff.
Reason: Irrigation during the summer months, planting of cypress tress, and the disappearance of the goat (which wrecked the Mediterranean after the elimination of the lion that kept the numbers in check).
This may not be true for the Bekaa valley and AntiLebanon. I haven’t been there since my childhood.
THE LEBANESE WAR THAT DOESN”T HAPPEN….
THE LEBANESE WAR THAT DOESN”T HAPPEN. Please show this your Lebanese friends who are scared to come visit their families in Lebanon.
The casualty rate from bombs in Lebanon over 2013 was ~2.5 per 100,000 people. It remains < a tenth of crime in NY in the 90s, <20th of crime in Brazil, etc. Outside bombs the homicide rate is very low.
Why?
Simply, a bomb is immediately noticed by the press, series of isolated crimes don’t make the newspaper. Antony Veich wrote: “in the case of Belfast the press usually stayed at The Europa, so the IRA took the bombs to the hotel… 28 times.” Sadly, people in 2014 make more irrational decisions than they did in 1900.
Visible risks are not really risks.
The other good news is that everyone is worried about “future risks”. The risks in Lebanon are not hidden. They are open for everyone to see, and nobody is wondering why in spite of all these incidents the war DID NOT happen? Every bomb that does not cause generalized warfare makes the system more robust to war (see Antifragility).
In 1975 the Palestinians had nothing to lose from civil war. Same with Syria. Today all parties have skin in the game, and are deep into real estate in Beirut
via THE LEBANESE WAR THAT DOESN”T HAPPEN…. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.
An illustration of how the news are largely created…
An illustration of how the news are largely created, bloated and magnified by journalists. I have been in Lebanon for the past 24h, and there were shells falling on a suburb of Beirut. Yet the news did not pass the local social filter and did reach me from social sources. People do not seem to find it interesting enough to talk about it and it was unable displace local social gossip and love-related intrigues, or envy-driven reports on extravagant spending by some nouveau-riche. The shelling is the kind of thing that is only discussed in the media because journalists can use it self-servingly to weave a web-worthy attention-grabbing narrative.
It is only through people away from the place discovering it through Google News or something even more stupid, the NYT, that I got the information; these people seemed impelled to inquire about my safety.What kills people in Lebanon: cigarettes, sugar, coca cola and other chemical monstrosities, iatrogenics, hypochondria, overtreament Lipitor etc., refined wheat pita bread, fast cars, lack of exercise, angry husbands or wives, etc., things that are not interesting enough to make it to Google News.A Roman citizen 2000 years ago was more calibrated in his risk assessment than an internet user today. Let’s wait to see what Big Data does to the story.
via An illustration of how the news are… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Facebook.
TO MY LEBANESE FRIENDS
TO MY LEBANESE FRIENDS. Heading soon to Lebanon in spite of events (please don’t tell my publishers). What people keep complaining about is the “instability” of the situation and the tension -not wondering that (1) tension is good; the more people are scared of instability (hence vigilant), the more stable the place (complacency is bad); (2) Lebanon is vastly MORE stable than one would have predicted given what’s taking place (think of the events that DID NOT happen). (3) Lebanon is antifragile: every problem leads to incremental mithridatization. (4) The media distorts risks. The press magnifies some hazards (just think of the hyping of risks of sharks in San Diego) not the real ones; their track record in predicting turmoil & collapses is close to zero.