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Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Published in INCERTO

·Apr 19

A Clash of Two Systems

The war in Ukraine is a confrontation between two systems, one modern, legalistic, decentralized and multicephalous; the other archaic, nationalistic, centralized and monocephalous — ( This is a copyright compatible version of my side of a conversation with Laetitia Strauch-Bonart published in the French periodical l’Express.) Offensive vs. Defensive Nationalism This conflict shows a harmful confusion, among the Russians and their supporters, between the state as a nation in the ethnic sense and the state as an administrative…

Ukraine War

12 min read

A Clash of Two Systems
A Clash of Two Systems

Published in INCERTO

·Nov 29, 2021

No, Covid 19 is not an old person problem

Clearly Covid affects the old, disproportionately. But so do practically almost all other ailments. A simple fact of life, in a population, it is the old that die disproportionally of all causes. If you look at the force of mortality of the population, you would notice that Covid reduces life…

3 min read

No, Covid 19 is not an old person problem
No, Covid 19 is not an old person problem

Published in INCERTO

·Aug 9, 2021

Snowden, Phony hence Traitor?

When you catch someone with a shoddy-but-carefully-curated story, Edward Snowden, producing the mother of bad faith arguments (in effect, lying) while, in addition, facilitating a character assassination (and severe cyberharassment), something very, very sinister about the person emerges that can help answer some fundamental yet still hanging questions. Say I…

Philosophy

6 min read

Snowden, Phony hence Traitor?
Snowden, Phony hence Traitor?

Published in INCERTO

·May 6, 2021

Safe Heaven

Foreword to Mark Spitznagel’s book Safe Haven [Amazon] Santa Marina — Karl Popper — Herman Hesse’s Sidharta — Mutua Muli — Porsche’s no substitute Santa Marina In my ancestral village in the Northern Levant, on top of a hill, stands a church dedicated to Santa Marina. Marina is a local saint, though…

Risk

9 min read

Safe Heaven
Safe Heaven

Published in INCERTO

·Nov 18, 2020

Maestro Bogomolny

Foreword for Cut the Knot: Probability Riddles by Alexander B. — How do you learn a language? There are two routes; the first is to memorize imperfect verbs, grammatical rules, future vs. past tenses, recite boring context-free sentences, and pass an exam. The second approach consists in going to a bar, struggling a little bit and, out of the need to…

5 min read

Maestro Bogomolny
Maestro Bogomolny

Published in INCERTO

·Oct 21, 2020

Religion, Violence, Tolerance & Progress: Nothing to do with Theology

1) Religions map to highly differentiated belief clusters and mentalities that have little to do with their theologies, 2) Heresies are separatist movements, often ethnic, and have little to do with religious doctrine. — “This city,” [Constantinople] says he [Gregory of Nyssa], “is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians; and preach in the shops, and in the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you, wherein the Son differs from the…

Terrorism

10 min read

Religion, Violence, Tolerance & Progress: Nothing to do with Theology
Religion, Violence, Tolerance & Progress: Nothing to do with Theology

Jul 10, 2020

Lebanon: from Ponzi to Antifragility

About two years before the recent collapse, at a dinner, a then (slow thinking) member of the Lebanese parliament kept bugging me for an economic forecast. There was already some anxiety in the air. My answer was that we were facing imminent financial disaster, but that it was not necessarily…

Lebanon

5 min read

Lebanon: from Ponzi to Antifragility
Lebanon: from Ponzi to Antifragility

Published in INCERTO

·Jun 14, 2020

The Masks Masquerade

Incompetence and Errors in Reasoning Around Face Covering SIX ERRORS: 1) missing the compounding effects of masks, 2) missing the nonlinearity of the probability of infection to viral exposures, 3) missing absence of evidence (of benefits of mask wearing) for evidence of absence (of benefits of mask wearing), 4) missing the point that people do not need governments…

Risk Management

5 min read

The Masks Masquerade
The Masks Masquerade

Published in INCERTO

·Mar 26, 2020

Corporate Socialism: The Government is Bailing Out Investors & Managers Not You

(With Mark Spitznagel) — The U.S. government is enacting measures to save the airlines, Boeing, and similarly affected corporations. While we clearly insist that these companies must be saved, there may be ethical, economic, and structural problems associated with the details of the execution. …

Black Swan

4 min read

Corporate Socialism: The Government is Bailing Out Investors & Managers Not You
Corporate Socialism: The Government is Bailing Out Investors & Managers Not You

Published in INCERTO

·Jan 2, 2019

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

For some technical backbone to this piece,see here. (Revised draft: added comments on sinister country profiling. Also 1) Used the same data as researchers to find that R² for IQ-wealth and IQ-income is effectively 0 in spite of the circularity. 2) Turns out IQ beats random selection in the best…

Psychology

13 min read

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle
IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle
Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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