Comments on: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought”

By: Pcllefebvre

Pcllefebvre — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:49:00 +0000

Can you explain me a quote in the book :
In a gaussian world, the probability of exceeding one standard deviation is around 16 percent. What are the odds of exceeding it under a distribution of fatter tails with the same mean and variance? The answer is Lower ! I don’t understand, I would like to understand with a SAMPLE of two distribution data : one in normal and another with father tail (same variance).
my Email is pcllefebvre@gmail.com Thanks.

By: inference, pt 1 | stillgoingnative

inference, pt 1 | stillgoingnative — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:02:31 +0000

[...] During a Long Now seminar, Nassim Taleb notes that low probability events are the most dangerous, in that they are the most unpredictable. The error term for an event with few observations is higher (the tails of any probability distribution); smaller n → larger ε. I began to ponder. My current occupation seems to be predicated on the notion that it’s possible to infer the future. But it’s sort of a joke: I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, much less years from now. [...]

By: The Next 100 Years Could Be Better Than This « Palafo

The Next 100 Years Could Be Better Than This « Palafo — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:55:40 +0000

[...] what are the “Black Swans” that Friedman missed? That’s the hard part, of course. Taleb would say that Black Swans defy prediction. Jetliners slamming into skyscrapers on a sunny September day. A tsunami off the coast of Georgia. A [...]

By: Newbie

Newbie — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:46:14 +0000

Though very, very interesting, the above entry contains a fallacy.

+ “Mediocristan is dominated by the average— one new observation won’t change much.” (Par. 5)

+ “Extremistan is dominated by extremes.” (Par. 6)

≠ “Benoit Mandelbrot convinced Taleb that the main dynamic of Mediocristan is energy, and the main dynamic of Extremistan is information.” (Par. 7)

Shouldn’t energy be Extremistan’s dynamic, and information be Mediocristan’s dynamic?

By: Stephen Marino

Stephen Marino — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:57:01 +0000

Just finished reading The Black Swan the recorded (chandler) version and found it very insightful.
I only wish I had read something like it during my 47 years with the Bell System. Many of the stories he referred to I experienced. Including the Long Term Capital Management meltdown that occurred in my home town (Greenwich) where I trapped muskrats in a pond where their headquarters was built.

By: Climate Change In Extremistan | Keeping The Lights On

Climate Change In Extremistan | Keeping The Lights On — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:12:39 +0000

[...] Foundation in February on “The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought” (mp3, summary), and at PopTech in 2007 (mp3, [...]

By: Prototype » Blog Archive » Commoncy & Ecommonics: The Future of Money

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 01:20:26 +0000

[...] maintains 50% of the wealth. 50% of the world lives on $2.00 a day. As long as a system allows for this type of imbalance, it becomes a system destined to comply to power-law distributions. Disproportionate concentrations [...]

By: Craig Overend

Craig Overend — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:08:13 +0000

It would be nice if these blog entries link back to the recordings.

By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought”, Longnow Foundation, 2008/02/04 « Media Download Queue –> Coevolving Innovations

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:22:49 +0000

[...] The Long Now Blog » Blog Archive » Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Future Has Always Been Crazier Th… [...]

By: Brendan Moynihan

Brendan Moynihan — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:42:07 +0000

“What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars” is actually reference in “The Black Swan”, on page 105. The book is available at http://www.LOSINGAMILLION.com

By: Lifeblog

Lifeblog — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:46:48 +0000

The turkey and the butcher…

Just wanted to get this little ditty out: I was listening to a very interesting Long Now seminar by Nassim Taleb, about his insight into randomness, predictability, and the like. If you don’t know who he is, Taleb wrote a…

By: Ahmed Fasih

Ahmed Fasih — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:33:31 +0000

Actually, Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan wrote a book called “What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars” in 1994. An Amazon search for the title returns The Black Swan at #3.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:36:08 +0000

Brilliant! Great talk that was extremely insightful and very entertaining. It’s given me loads to think about.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:17:58 +0000

Fun fact: Arthur C. Clarke actually wrote an essay entitled “How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time”, about neglecting to patent the concept of the geosynchronous telecommunications satellite.