Quotes About Anticipation

When we think of tomorrow, we just project it as another yesterday.

Actually, wouldn't it be better if the length of movies were kept a secret?

people often think that it will surely be the next batch of news that will really make a difference to their understanding of things.)

So the reader can imagine my state of mind when

The longer we had to wait for it, the more severe it would be.

We humans lack imagination, to the point of not even knowing what tomorrow's important things look like.

If you are a Stone Age historical thinker called on to predict the future in a comprehensive report for your chief tribal planner, you must project the invention of the wheel or you will miss pretty much all of the action. Now, if you can prophesy the invention of the wheel, you already know what a wheel looks like, and thus you already know how to build a wheel, so you are already on your way. The Black Swan needs to be predicted!

This dovetails into the "barbell" strategy of taking maximum exposure to the positive Black Swans while remaining paranoid about the negative ones.

law of iterated expectations, which I outline here in its strong form: if I expect to expect something at some date in the future, then I already expect that something at present.

follows: to understand the future to the point of being able to predict it, you need to incorporate elements from this future itself. If

On the day when we are able to foresee inventions we will be living in a state where everything conceivable has been invented. Our

trusting that Nero would be able to read his mind.

It is often said that "is wise he who can see things coming." Perhaps the wise one is the one who knows that he cannot see things far away.

it makes them much less dependent on economic forecasts. This allowed them to shrug off later crises.2

There is actually a law in statistics called the law of iterated expectations, which I outline here in its strong form: if I expect to expect something at some date in the future, then I already expect that something at present.

an even smaller handful managed to foresee the full extent of the damage.

Someone who predicts will be fragile to prediction errors.

the most successful businesses are precisely those that know how to work around inherent unpredictability and even exploit it.

to understand the future to the point of being able to predict it, you need to incorporate elements from this future itself.

in spite of how hyped they were at the time of publication.

Teller. We have always been suckers for those who tell us about the future

You can project a continuation into the future.

So our mission in life becomes simply "how not to be a turkey

With respect to Black Swans, you act to protect yourself from negative ones (or expose yourself to positive ones) even though you may have no evidence that they can take place