The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't

6 discussion topics on which David agrees with Taleb:(1) [p. 286] The sterilized randomness of games does not resemble randomness in real life; thinking it does constitutes the Ludic Fallacy (his neologism). This is exactly right, and mathematicians should pay attention. In my own list of 100 instances of chance in the real world, exactly 1 item is... See more

Our own experience makes us stubborn old men about the future. We have lived through past growth rates. We’ve never lived through future growth. Therefore, it’s a lot easier for us to intuit what the future will be like by extrapolating linearly based on what we’ve actually experienced. Yes, things will be different, we all know that, but they’ll b... See more

It’s not hard to find examples of experts’ predictions which always end up being way off. It’s not because the experts are not knowledgeable—in fact it might be because they are too knowledgeable.