Quotes About Taleb

In a famous argument, the logician W. V. Quine showed that there exist families of logically consistent interpretations and theories that can match a given series of facts. Such insight should warn us that mere absence of nonsense may not be sufficient to make something true.

His argument was criticized for being rather incomplete.

but because most unseasoned ideas are fragile.

la acción del Cisne Negro se sitúa en Extremistán, no es más que una mera aproximación; les ruego que no la platonifiquen, no la simplifiquemos más de lo que sea necesario.

will side in favor of Rav Safra's action in the debate.

Academic work, because of its attention-seeking orientation, can be easily subjected to Lindy effects: think of the hundreds of thousands of papers that are just noise, in spite of how hyped they were at the time of publication.

Extremistan, you will have trouble figuring out the average from any sample since it can depend so much on one single observation. The idea is not more difficult than that. In Extremistan, one unit can easily affect the total in a disproportionate way. In this world, you should always be suspicious of the knowledge you derive from data. This is a very simple test of uncertainty that allows you to distinguish between the two kinds of randomness. Capish?

this attribute is universal to all our activities: there is something in us designed to protect our self-esteem.

the larger and more complex the education sector, the less obvious any links to productivity become.

El lector podrá observar en esta falacia del viaje de ida y vuelta la injusticia de los estereotipos;

and no less intellectual than Nero.

the ultimate test of whether you like an author is if you've reread him)

I have always hated employment and the associated dependence on someone else's arbitrary opinion

Time is the expert. Or, rather, the temperamental and ruthless Lindy, as we see in the next chapter.

He is often involved in a strange ritual, something commonly called "a meeting." Now, in addition to these traits, he defaults to thinking that what he doesn't see is not there, or what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.

Time is an eraser rather than a builder, and a good one at breaking the fragile—whether buildings or ideas.

These two mistakes are quite telling because, in both cases, the benefits appeared to be obvious and immediate, though small, and the harm remained delayed for years

the burden of proof lies on someone disturbing a complex system, not on the person protecting the status quo.

The latest I've seen is about how economists should shoot for the role of lowly philosophers rather than that of high priests. Yet, in one ear and out the other.

and I wondered whether he might have stayed alive had he gone to New York instead.