Naive empiricism, terrorism & Ebola.

How "evidence" about the risk of terrorism as shown in the NYT and by BS vending outlets makes no sense statistically. Explains the difference between classes using principles of Extreme Value Theory EVT without any math.

[SydneyApplebaum]

On sharks and trucks: "Let's not mess up our ingrained ability to detect risk, even if it overshoots at times... ...we've survived several hundred million years and what do psychologist know. We don't even know if his paper will survive..." Classic Taleb. Great stuff.

[Senecamarcus]

Unbelievable! Always ahead of the crowd!

[ryanbothun]

This clarified so many things for me. Thank you for your work.

[hsujack]

Thank you for your public service on increasing people's understanding on probability theory.

[CurtStrength]

Thank you for making me a little less ignorant!

[learner]

so the bottom line is that you cannot compare terrorism to falling from ladders, because the former is capable of generating extreme event (mass casualties) whilst the latter is not

[binra]

“No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda (directed risk assessment) is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.”
~ Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Whether or not the narrative is true or not as presented is secondary to the establishing of 'accepted public discourse'. The risk of penalty as a result of questioning the ebola or terrorist narrative is such that very few do - with the explanation that a consensus reality operates the unquestionable 'truth'.
But no matter how many accept a fallacy and act as if it is true by investing and adapting within its social identity - it necessarily conflicts with true - and will demand sacrifice of true to maintain 'continuity' against risk of exposure as false.

Society is being organised around and predicated upon fear and guilt. Perhaps this is nothing new - but the technologism that brings globalisation is the amplification and extension of such identity construct.
Truly fulfilling being is not a strategic risk assessment - but an optimum fulfilment recognition.
I would say that the former can serve within the latter - such that when engaging in an act or a relationship - we release presumptions of 'knowing' to take a fresh perspective - as an open awareness that is also accessing past learning but not running blindly in its conditioned response.
Because the latter is so pervasive and systematic to human-doings the human being remains as a potential context for experience while 'thinking' operates the fleshing out or modelling of its experience as 'world'. (talks to itself).
The fear agenda operates destructively under the illusion of a fixed and controlling identity - which deals with the living in terms of a fragmentation or incoherence (chaos) upon which all the king's horses and all the king's men (power struggle) attempt to put Humpty together again (futility). However - if that is the accepted and believed reality - then working to reintroduce sanity into such a thought system will work with the current beliefs to enable them to be revised in the light of an expanding and integrative wholeness of being.
However (by whatever means) Humpty became broken is an association signifying brokenness that then takes (is given) meaning over lost connection, communication and wholeness of being. Innocence lost becomes the basis of sacrifice of (and to) an asserted and applied guilt.
Drone assassinations kill many who are put on a list for suspected or anticipated threats or who happen to have their old phone - or be in the vicinity or attend first response for the second hit. Perhaps it doesn't matter who gets killed as long as the precedent is set loud and clear that anyone can be 'taken out' remotely - regardless of where on Earth - for being perceived as a threat to the US of E. Acts of terror and impending terror 'plagues' operate on many levels to disempower by all and any means - such that the 'protection' racket can find (hack) access and acceptance.
Is our skin in the game the fear of pain and loss - or is it an investment in a true appreciation? Is the outsourcery of pain and loss to 'OTHERS' a basis for a true profit?
Or is divide and rule the illusion of control that rules out any perspective of a true Sanity?

[khlebasmike]

Nassim, thanks a lot for your work, you've literally changed my life!

[humanrays]

I can't count the number of people who have compared deaths from car crashes/drug overdoses/etc to you-know-what over the past few weeks.

[benjaminscherrey]

Excellent examples of the potential between these two categories of risk. I will certainly be using these many times in the future.

[mopsnuf]

A great thought exercise on the worlds of Mediocristan and Extremistan once more, mr. Taleb. However do you feel like terrorism is in essence as dangerous as, say, a contagious disease? I know this sounds like me falling for a bias, but it seems to me these rare events gain way too much media and public attention and fear is what drives us in thinking about them. Even in a 'bad' year husbands seem far, far more dangerous than terrorists could be. Probabilities varying from 1 in 17 million to 1 in 6 million might suggest Extremistan-like variance, but we're talking about minute, 6*10^-8 and 1.7*10^-7 probabilities here. The total factual impact of terrorism seems like a clear case of the edges of Mediocristan to me, unlike war which can take much larger sizes.
A somewhat direct side question, are there possibilities to follow a PhD on a faculty related to your research, maybe even with you?

[PeterBrennanfisic]

If you are interested, would like to see some video's from you on global warming or other environmental risks. This strikes me as the greatest fat tailed risk in history.

[jeremyrainman]

So, if I were to attempt to accurately re-state this.... take shots at me and correct me here...

The risk to a society from falling off a ladder and dying while putting up Christmas lights cannot be compared to the risk of terrorist acts causing death to the same people. The reason this is so comes down to the difference in overall risk to society from both (sequences of) events combined with the relative ability to affect changes in their probability by society. For instance, banning all ladders to eliminate the risk of death from ladders is cost-prohibitive due to the expense of everyone needing to buy fall-harnesses and rent diesel cherry-pickers to substitute for the loss of ladders, and is unlikely to prevent the average person from dying due to individual carelessness to begin with. While on the converse side, simply not allowing people with anti-western ideologies into the west is justifiable, has actually been done before, and would have significant effects on the freedom that is preserved for people who love western cultures in doing so.

[isaacnewton]

What does he mean "choose three sigmas" or "six sigmas"? How can I learn this terminology?

[KurruptCarrot]

Just because we can’t compare thin tails with fat tails doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something about the thin tails. That’s what the “Nudge” unit was trying to do. Which seems reasonable.

[noredbull]

It would be extremely interesting (and important) to hear any observation about coronavirus math part.

[femiakinsola]

NT cannot stand BS! Debunking myths and anti-intellectualism, but I have the opinion you need to subject your theories to 'independent' scrutiny and it will require those in the intellectual movement to help the world with the scrutiny.

[makkusuXmax]

monopoly guy no longer has a monocle. mandela effect.

[RJ]

So few "experts" understand.

[stevelaudig]

Caution: joke possible bad joke alert. NNT says you "can't compare, you can't, you can't" you "can compare them" That they are compared proves you "can". You can compare them but you'd be wrong. ok, it's better done in person.cheers. "oughtn't" is what he means and I understand.