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Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

themultidisciplinarian.com

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Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#41
post #32

I think anyone who has inhabited planet earth for more than 25-30 years or so starts to realize that most of people are either: 1. “Geniuses” of speculation and every topic under the sun (overconfident braggarts that make sweeping claims that are difficult to criticize because they are so general; such dreamers talk big but really have little expertise) 2. People that actually are “deep-knowledge” experts, but only i…

There are also a lot of people who know nothing and struggle to understand anything new and don't either brag about it or have any deeper field on understand. They can also usually tie their shoelace.

Of course, and of all the categories, it is those of this bunch that actually keep the world running in terms of what ultimately matters for us humans.

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#42
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job applicants for junior trading (market making) roles are often given similar questions. An example question might be: "Make me a market on the height of the empire state building." By this the interviewer means: what price would you buy at and what price would you sell at? So for example I might respond 1000/2000. which means I'm buying at 1000ft and selling at 2000ft. Presumably, I believe the true height is some…

Your factor #1 above (about adverse selection through trading with a well-informed counterparty) reminded me of something I read in 'Trading and Exchanges'. The section 'The Adverse Selection Spread Component' says that dealers will set their bid/ask spreads to account for the information they will get when someone hits their bid or whatever. So they need to estimate the probability that their next trade is with an i…

Exactly! Being a market maker means constantly interacting with counterparties that have more information than you. In order to be successful you must utilize the core information they do not have: you are in the center of the order flow. Essentially, you must try to infer the knowledge that others possess by utilizing information about how they trade with you.

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#43
post #8

The book 'How to measure anything' talks about how to improve your own calibration. From what I recall (it's been a while since I read it), the author recommended testing yourself to estimate a bunch of questions with numerical answers. For example: what's the height of the empire state building? You write down a range for each answer, trying to make the range narrow enough that you're just about 80% confident that t…

Job applicants for junior trading (market making) roles are often given similar questions. An example question might be: "Make me a market on the height of the empire state building." By this the interviewer means: what price would you buy at and what price would you sell at? So for example I might respond 1000/2000. which means I'm buying at 1000ft and selling at 2000ft. Presumably, I believe the true height is some…

They still ask these questions...they were asking them in the 2000s, I actually assumed they stopped asking this stuff.

They demonstrate absolutely nothing. All they test for is whether you know enough about the recruiting process to know they are going to ask you some daft question about the number of windows in a city (this is called second-level thinking, it is useful in finance, it is always interesting that ppl who work in finance don't understand that...they usually ask these questions because someone asked them at their interview).

If you want to know whether someone can trade: ask them what they are trading already, and just sit them down at the desk and see what happens.

Investment banks are the grade-A example of terrible/illogical hiring (although one that largely achieves the goal of hiring more people like the people who already work at investment banks).

Also, thinking that you can master uncertainty isn't really the point. You can't. The whole discussion is pointless. It took me a very long time to realise that the neuralgia that people who work in finance have around uncertainty (largely a function of hiring practices at banks/educational background and including myself) was predictably profitable (the second-level thinking here is realising that someone lifting your bid/offers in a trading game doesn't represent reality because in reality, the person you are trading with under conditions of uncertainty doesn't have perfect information or even more information than you...so when uncertainty increases, the potential profit increases). Thinking that you can harness the vagaries of life and your own irrationality or poor decision-making skills is, however, common amongst people with a lot of education...and totally wrong (it is an irrational fear of uncertainty borne of a heavily structured life with prescribed questions and answers).

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#46
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job applicants for junior trading (market making) roles are often given similar questions. An example question might be: "Make me a market on the height of the empire state building." By this the interviewer means: what price would you buy at and what price would you sell at? So for example I might respond 1000/2000. which means I'm buying at 1000ft and selling at 2000ft. Presumably, I believe the true height is some…

They still ask these questions...they were asking them in the 2000s, I actually assumed they stopped asking this stuff. They demonstrate absolutely nothing. All they test for is whether you know enough about the recruiting process to know they are going to ask you some daft question about the number of windows in a city (this is called second-level thinking, it is useful in finance, it is always interesting that ppl…

Heh, you have some fair points and probably some good stories. Hit me up, would love to hear more.

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical of any sorting of things into two bins, people or otherwise. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-12-28 You do have a point though (why I recall decade old comics as conversation pieces and not people's names... sigh) There are a lot of people on "mount stupid", in fact the chance that someone talking about a subject is trapped in the overconfidence of mount stupid is very high. In other words, most o…

> I'm skeptical of any sorting of things into two bins, people or otherwise. Reminds me of the saying that there are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t.

10 kind of people:

Those who understand binary,

Those who don't,

Those who understand ternary...

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#48

Smart is how well your brain works. Education is the things your brain knows. Wisdom is the combination. Smart does not imply having knowledge.

It's also important to distinguish between 'knowing' and 'understanding'.

If someone tells me how to says Good morning in, let's say, Mongolian, I 'know' how to greet people, but dont 'understand' how it works (can't tell which part of the sound/symbol represents what, etc.)

Re: Smart Folk Often Full of Crap, Study Finds

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I would say intelligence is what you have naturally, education is what you acquire in school, and wisdom is what you acquire through experience. These are not interchangeable.

I prefer to think of it as wisdom is what you know intrinsically, education is what you have learned, intelligence is your capacity for learning

Nice summary, but I dislike the fact that education has made the default understanding of these categories to be about retaining information/knowledge rather that your ability to compute/reason/intuit.

Yes, familiarity with a field should improve skill, but I like to think that one can be smart, intelligent or wise in a situation that does not involve previous information about it.

Someone exposed to a brand new game or puzzle can be smart, intelligent or wise in solving it separately (to some degree) from having prior information.

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