I think an important way to understand the optionality/convexity is to imagine science without it. Here is a paper about that: https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf - the idea is: what if there are inventions that could destroy our civilisation? One example of such invention would be a bomb as powerful as an atomic bomb - but from materials and technologies readily available to anyone. Surely there would be terrorist/mafias/suicidal individuals who would build and use them.
Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
61–69 of 69 posts
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an extremely flawed initial assumption. that was not an initial assumption but (presumably) the subject of the essay. its not clearly stated in the text though > you can certainly win on chance in the long run No you can't ; both casinos and insurance companies make choices that give them an assymetry in gains, and thus they benefit from the randomness of events. Chance is by definition centered around the…
This is the concept of ergodicity. The fun fact is that even if casinos offered a game with 50% odds players without unlimited bankrolls would still always bust eventually[1]. It's similar to why betting $1 to make $1 million at million to one odds is a smart bet, but betting $1 million to make $1 at the equivalent odds isn't, unless you have an unlimited bankroll. [1] If they use the Kelly criterion they won't bust…
thaat's only because they have "chosen" to not allow players with negative balances or margins.
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 defini…
It is a fair question I suppose. I watched the incident at the time and I felt Taleb was being a misogynist yes. However I am not prepared to go trawling through the bile again to find specific quotes. I acknowledge that there is a chance I am remembering it incorrectly. Lots of people who joined in his appalling baiting were certainly openly misogynist in their language, and maybe I am accusing him of being guilty-b…
Thanks for the key phrase, actually found most of the original thread (I think), and the feminist cover one you mentioned [1], but not what apparent revision Beard made that led that reply. I don't really use twitter, partly because it's such a terrible place to begin with and I get into enough arguments on HN and Reddit as it is.
Taleb is unsurprisingly obnoxious and inflammatory, and you're right that his ego is huge. I don't see anything specifically misogynist from in that thread (although maybe that last one crossed the line, hard to say without context), but if you're right that he encourages his followers in that manner, that's skirting that line pretty damn closely.
At the very least, this is an interesting case study in historical scholarship and philosophy of language for sure (does Beard calling it "accurate" entail that it's "representative" and thus "typical"?). I would have to read a lot more to take a side, but I probably won't. Thanks for the info though!
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/894316405365100544
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#64>A "1/N" strategy is almost always best with convex strategies (the dispersion property): following point (1) and reducing the costs per attempt, compensate by multiplying the number of trials and allocating 1/N of the potential investment across N investments, and make N as large as possible. This allows us to minimize the probability of missing rather than maximize profits should one have a win, as the latter teleological strategy lowers the probability of a win. A large exposure to a single trial has lower expected return than a portfolio of small trials.
Isn't that YC Combinator in a nutshell?
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#65"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…
>No experiment could ever possibly hurt scientific knowledge. (...) This is an extremely flawed initial assumption. There is no requirement for chance to be centered around zero. Consider rolling a dice: sometimes you'll get more than the mean, sometimes less, but you'll never roll a negative number.
That's the convexity property Taleb argues must lie underneath research though.
So, you're saying the same thing.
What he means with the first paragraph is not that chance can't lead to gains -- it's that chance alone cannot lead to gains. There should be an additional property, and that's what the article is about.
Consider your counter-argument: "You can certainly win on chance in the long run, that's the foundation of casinos".
And yet, that's not the foundation of casinos. That's what the article speaks against. For if it was chance + long run alone the "foundation" then it would work for the players too. But players face ruin in the long run (unless they have an infinite supply of money), while casinos do not.
The foundation of casinos is chance + resilience to chance events (a casino doesn't go under from this or that player winning) -- e.g. the exact convexity the author talks about.
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it's badly written in a way to provoke controversy, but fundamentally, I'm not sure there's any real disagreement here? In simple terms, he's just saying that it needs to be safe to take chances in order for it to be worthwhile to take chances. As you say, science is an example of a system where it's often safe to take chances, because you don't risk losing any knowledge from a failed experiment. (But that does…
> Yeah, it's badly written in a way to provoke controversy I’m not sure it is worth my time to read something that is badly written to provoke controversy, even if it does make good clickbait.
It is worth the time for those that can read beyond the title or opening paragraphs.
There's nothing against a work with a clickbait title or opening being the most important thing one would read all year.
Like whether an author is a "bad man" in their personal life tells us nothing about the worth of their work, the ways an author/editor tries to attract viewers do not mean that the actual content is also of bad quality.
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah, it's badly written in a way to provoke controversy I’m not sure it is worth my time to read something that is badly written to provoke controversy, even if it does make good clickbait.
Yeah, I used to go out of my way to follow links to Taleb’s writing, but then I kept running into pieces like this one, where it wasn’t clear if he knew he was fundamentally (if not subtly) wrong. He seems to welcome controversy, and his recent childish attack on guy from 538 means I won’t give him more than a paragragh to convince me the rest of the piece is worth my time.
>* but then I kept running into pieces like this one, where it wasn’t clear if he knew he was fundamentally (if not subtly) wrong*
He is not "fundamentally" wrong here though. The parent comment misread what TFA says (as I replied above).
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure he did. He didn't follow the modern Bacon/Popper empirical method with testable hypotheses, but he still performed experiments and drew conclusions based on what he saw. All beside the point: his observations are not invalid, his conclusions are
So women do have fewer teeth?!
No, but not because Aristotle was against observation. Just because he either miscounted or trusted a wrong earlier observation. What he wrote is:
"”Males have more teeth than females in the case of men, sheep, goats, and swine; in the case of other animals _observations have not yet been made_”
Emphasis mine.
Re: Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought Aristotle didn't do experiments.
Sure he did. He didn't follow the modern Bacon/Popper empirical method with testable hypotheses, but he still performed experiments and drew conclusions based on what he saw. All beside the point: his observations are not invalid, his conclusions are
He made observations, sure, but what are some actual experiments he did? (Or where to read about that?)