[ExI] Black Swans - Revisited

Jef Allbright jef at jefallbright.net
Tue Sep 16 17:01:15 UTC 2008


A timely essay by Nassim Taleb at Edge.org.

<http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html>

While Taleb uses far too many words per concept (in my opinion, and I'm
certainly guilty of the inverse) he tries to convey a crucial point
increasingly relevant to increasingly informed decision-making within an
increasingly uncertain world.  Paradoxical?  Not at all.

In a sense, Taleb reminds me of Eliezer.  Both outsiders, both posessing
rare insights (upsights?), and both following their own path, progressively
discarding assumptions on the way to uncovering what might remain to form a
highly applicable instrument.

Recommended for those who care, for example, about the distinction between
likelihood and probability, how goals are meaningful only as values
effectively specified, and how effective decision-making in an environment
of evolving uncertainty must deemphasize outcomes in favor of principles
promoting an increasing context of increasingly coherent (evolving) values.

- Jef
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