Month: July 2022

There are many well-worn arguments trotted out by the media and pundits against genetic determinism, or that IQ or talent does not matter compared to ‘grit’. They tend to have gaping holes. “The correlation between IQ and job performance is low, around .20-.30, thus IQ is not that important.” Taleb cites this common statistic in… Continue reading Refuting common arguments against IQ and talent

The Elon vs. Twitter saga shows that the price to fight social network censorship is very high. The price: tens of billions of dollars, or at least in his case, $44 billion. I too was optimistic that the deal would materialize, and by mid April Elon alluded multiple times on his Twitter timeline that the… Continue reading Elon Musk Puts a Price Tag on Fighting Social Media Censorship

I am somewhat skeptical that academia is as liberal as it’s commonly purported to be. Capitalism is much more inclusive compared to the insularity of academia. This possibly makes capitalism more liberal than academia, which is more like a priesthood, if liberalism is defined as openness and inclusivity. Business is about making one’s product accessible… Continue reading Why capitalism and business is possibly more liberal than academia

Who are the elite? What are elite-level jobs and college degrees? I think the key criteria are: -Visibility and influence on policy and or discourse -High pay, but also playing an important role at large, highly-visible companies, with opportunities for promotion -Connections, networking So being a doctor or a specialist, despite the good pay, is… Continue reading Who are the elite, and why elite overproduction is not a problem

Talab tweeted this: The disease of the 20th C. is utopianism, that of the 21st is hypernaive utopianism: Libertarianism, Wokism, Cryptoism, Techno-salvationism etc. are identical in spirit to Communism. #Antifragile, a Burkian antiutopian manifesto is used by bitdiots to justify crypto-utopianism. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 3, 2022 One of these is distinctly unlike… Continue reading Taleb is woke

One of the major problems with the financial media is not that it’s inaccurate per say (or so-called ‘fake news’), but it’s a combination sensationalism and data being taken out of context. The reporting of the data is the bigger problem than the data itself. I’ll give two examples. It’s all over the news that… Continue reading Sensationalism and misleading/confusing headlines in the financial media

Amazing how much health insurance stocks have gone up over the past decade. Humana stock for example: We don’t have healthcare in America, it’s more like sick care. Healthcare implies that people are getting better, but no one is getting better. No one is being cured, just having symptoms managed. Hundreds of billions, possibly as… Continue reading Nothing about America’s Healthcare System Makes Sense