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Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

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Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#31

Post by jimnotgym »

naasking wrote: post #30
jimnotgym wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw Taleb's name at the top and stopped reading. Can we start a thing that we put Taleb's name in brackets at the end of a post title (Like NSFW) so I don't have to be sick in my mouth? It is statistically provable that Taleb has the world's biggest ego. I have no time for his rampant mysogyny. I know he might say clever stuff, but it's not worth feeling unclean for.

I'm curious why you think Taleb is a misogynist. A quick Google didn't turn up anything other than a few posts of his where mentions the word. He seems like an abrasive ass in general, but he's only a misogynist if he's more of an abrasive ass to women than men.

Have a look out for his appalling attack on renowned clacissist Dame Mary Beard. Actually I suggest you don't.

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#32

Post by jimnotgym »

small_mind wrote: post #23
jimnotgym wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw Taleb's name at the top and stopped reading. Can we start a thing that we put Taleb's name in brackets at the end of a post title (Like NSFW) so I don't have to be sick in my mouth? It is statistically provable that Taleb has the world's biggest ego. I have no time for his rampant mysogyny. I know he might say clever stuff, but it's not worth feeling unclean for.

To further boil down what the article tries to distill, but never explicitly states as a revealed conclusion: Success requires agency. The positive outcomes must be recognized and selected for, to produce gains. Correct. We live in a world where sentient intelligence persists upon a substrate of inert, newtonian determinism. Life, itself, stands bound by gravity, upon a rock floating in space. So where’s the investme…

That sounds so logical, but the truth is that reputation is a useful time saver. I don't have time to read the vast majority of what is written in the world, why should I make time to read stuff written by someone who I know is an arrogant ass?

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#33

Post by Nasrudith »

bchjam wrote: post #26
hannasanarion wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falsification is something that you do to hypotheses, not data. Experiments that Aristotle performed to demonstrate classical elemental theory are still valid and useful, his incorrect interpretation of the underlying mechanisms notwithstanding

If someone knowingly uses bad data, aren't the claims supported by it false?

Technically that is fallacious - a lie doesn't make the claim false it not being true does. Rarely frauds can be accidentally accurate.

It has a bit of a meta role I suppose - a system must be robust enough with replication that it shouldn't matter. Knowing bad actors are about can promote better verification practices than a blind trust.

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#34

Post by ludston »

small_mind wrote: post #13

The writing style of this article strikes a tone that seems overly eager to place an eloquent vocabulary on display. Hey guys! Look at all the big, big words I can use! Don’t I sound smart??? Seriously. It’s like they wrote, and proof read the original draft, then performed a search/replace for any polysyllabic synonym they could opportunistically inject. Why do they need to sound smart? Is it really because they kno…

Or, he has over a long time tricked himself into thinking in that language style and otherwise has trouble (or at least no desire for) expressing himself otherwise.

I might be taking bait here. I guess I take umbradge at the post I am replying to because it has insults in it, which is not so pleasant. Maybe it's just the hypocrisy, as its language is also verbose. To paraphrase:

> The writing style of this article strikes a tone that seems overly eager to place an eloquent vocabulary on display.

"This article uses too many big words"

> You could sum up the sentiment with an anaology to paraphrase the concept: “defensive programming is no replacement for accomplished programming skill” (to borrow a concept comparable to investing)

"You could sum up his article as: 'following best practices won't replace programming skill'"

You might argue that paraphrasing like I have detracts meaning but I'm sure the original author of the article would say that too.

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#35

Post by naasking »

jimnotgym wrote: post #31
naasking wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think Taleb is a misogynist. A quick Google didn't turn up anything other than a few posts of his where mentions the word. He seems like an abrasive ass in general, but he's only a misogynist if he's more of an abrasive ass to women than men.

Have a look out for his appalling attack on renowned clacissist Dame Mary Beard. Actually I suggest you don't.

I just read Pagliucci's summary of the exchange [1]. Taleb's disdain for academics is well known, particularly the humanities, and that seems on full display here. I don't see anything specifically misogynistic though. Did Pagliucci simply not quote what you're referring to?

Edit: by which I mean, what definitively demonstrates his misogyny as opposed to a gender neutral disdain for historians in general? He's definitely the abrasive ass I described earlier, but misogynist doesn't seem warranted, and it's a label that's thrown around far too freely these days.

[1] https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/beard-nassem-taleb-twitter-f...

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#36

Post by quickthrower2 »

jjk166 wrote: post #2

"The point we will be making here is that logically, neither trial and error nor "chance" and serendipity can be behind the gains in technology and empirical science attributed to them. By definition chance cannot lead to long term gains (it would no longer be chance); trial and error cannot be unconditionally effective: errors cause planes to crash, buildings to collapse, and knowledge to regress." This is an extrem…

I read this from the perspective of money. If an invention or discovery makes some organisation, company or government a lot of money, then that money can be ploughed back into research. If on average science and technology is making us more money than it costs it will be "antifragile".

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#38

Post by killjoywashere »

rajacombinator wrote: post #22

Amazing how Taleb can write such utter banalities and yet utterly believe he is writing novel and important things.

I'm not sure he thinks what he's writing is novel. But he does seem to think it's important and if you consider his earnings as signal, he does have signal in that direction. To whom is it important? Not academia. But probably socially, it is. You have to convince a lot of people before you convince a politician...

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#39

Post by api »

jimnotgym wrote: post #20
small_mind wrote: post #13

The writing style of this article strikes a tone that seems overly eager to place an eloquent vocabulary on display. Hey guys! Look at all the big, big words I can use! Don’t I sound smart??? Seriously. It’s like they wrote, and proof read the original draft, then performed a search/replace for any polysyllabic synonym they could opportunistically inject. Why do they need to sound smart? Is it really because they kno…

I saw Taleb's name at the top and stopped reading. Can we start a thing that we put Taleb's name in brackets at the end of a post title (Like NSFW) so I don't have to be sick in my mouth? It is statistically provable that Taleb has the world's biggest ego. I have no time for his rampant mysogyny. I know he might say clever stuff, but it's not worth feeling unclean for.

I dunno. An ego size comparison between Taleb and Wolfram would be pretty epic. Get both in a room and the resulting ego singularity could damage local space-time.

Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)

#40

Post by api »

small_mind wrote: post #23
jimnotgym wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw Taleb's name at the top and stopped reading. Can we start a thing that we put Taleb's name in brackets at the end of a post title (Like NSFW) so I don't have to be sick in my mouth? It is statistically provable that Taleb has the world's biggest ego. I have no time for his rampant mysogyny. I know he might say clever stuff, but it's not worth feeling unclean for.

To further boil down what the article tries to distill, but never explicitly states as a revealed conclusion: Success requires agency. The positive outcomes must be recognized and selected for, to produce gains. Correct. We live in a world where sentient intelligence persists upon a substrate of inert, newtonian determinism. Life, itself, stands bound by gravity, upon a rock floating in space. So where’s the investme…

If that's it, it's not exactly a novel idea.

Are there actually people who argue that brute trial and error with nothing else in play can yield structured knowledge? Note that biological evolution doesn't count because it is not mere trial and error.

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