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i'll concede taleb's math might be better than his writing, but i'm not convinced his reasoning from it is sound. and yes, his fund is likely a hedge in a larger strategy, but one success is hardly indicative of predictive power. we'd need millenia of data to even get a sense of that (note that snake-oil salesmen also rely on not easily falsifiable claims). > "Fear in ignorance is good if the possibility space you're ignorant of contains catastrophic consequences." sure, a fear of the unknown is baked into the limbic system, but herein is the crux of our disagreement: what fear is and is not, what's catastrophic and what's not, and the magnitude of "contains" relative to preparation and response. fear is a cascading physiological process that triggers our fight-or-flight response (lizard brain), causing physical and emotional degradation, and shutting down our rational brains. fear retards our ability to think and act appropriately. unless the threat is something imminently immediate, like an oncoming car, fear can easily overwhelm our response with misjudgment (hoarding, for example). concern and caution--cousins of fear--are frontal, intellectual processes built atop the limbic. these, along with diversity of thought and appropriate communication, can lead to reasonable responses to non-imminent threats. this is what we should lean into, not fear. the mistake with covid (and 9/11, etc.) is not recognizing the difference. covid is trending toward 5% of yearly US deaths. certainly concerning and worthy of serious response, but not civilization destroying. that's the right context to couch our reactions. |