A new book is out by the journalist Tom Chivers, author of The Rationalist’s Guide to the Galaxy and How to Read Numbers. The Wall Street Journal likes it. Kirkus Reviews calls it “An ingenious introduction to the mathematics of rational thinking.” Oliver Burkeman wrote, “Life is shot through with uncertainty, but in this fascinating,…
Artificial Intelligence
The Horserace Part 4: “The ‘Paul’s Dead’ Election”
I have frequently here decried the quality of our national political media outlets, writing that they focus on the horserace, not the impacts electing one or another candidate might bring to all of us. Many people have jumped (surely unknowingly) on my bandwagon, saying they want “less about the horserace,…
Economics
Robert Rubin’s Russian Roulette: “The Yellow Pad: Making Better Decisions in an Uncertain World”
February 5, 2024 The ignorance of even the best-informed investor about the more remote future is much greater than his knowledge, and he cannot but be influenced to a degree which would seem wildly disproportionate to anyone who really knew the future, and be forced to seek a clue mainly…
Rigorous Imagination
Dead Certain: Presentation to the Intelligence Leadership Forum
Many thanks to Dr. Liam Fahey for the recent opportunity to present some of my ideas to his topflight group of strategy and intelligence executives in the Intelligence Leadership Forum. The Cult of Prediction has some fairly ancient roots, and rigorous imagination requires the abandonment of some familiar and profitable…
Forecasting
The Economist Succumbs to the Cult of Prediction…Again
The Economist’s annual preview of the coming year once again includes predictions. And that is a problem. To show you why it was a problem for 2023, let me share some slides I presented recently to the Intelligence Leadership Forum. The tl;dr version: Things that can be predicted with certainty are almost never strategic;…
Forecasting
Even Some “Scientific” Stuff Requires Alternative Scenarios: El Niño Edition
Every day brings more proof that the range of strategically critical phenomena that are utterly unable to be predicted is almost as vast as it was in the day of Brian Rua U’Cearbhain or the Oracle of Delphi. Today, the Washington Post shows us that even when the vast majority…
Forecasting
Horserace Episode 3.5: Pundit Whiplash/Pigheadedness Edition
November 9, 2023Yesterday, Democrats nearly swept the table in an off-year election, easily passing a referendum in red-state Ohio enshrining the right to abortion, easily re-electing a Democratic governor in Kentucky, and sweeping into the majority in both houses of the Virginia legislature. None of these things were predictable; all…
Forecasting
Horserace Episode 3: Forecasting Follies
November 7, 2023 Nate Silver, the other day, tweeted (or “Xed?”) that the Democratic Party should be very very worried. “You have the whole electorate basically screaming ‘BIDEN’S TOO OLD.’ There’s a year’s worth of campaign to go, very likely some reversion to the fundamentals, Trump’s legal issues probably a larger liability…
Economics
Artisanal Dark Ages
November 2, 2023 In 1908, John Laing Leal, a physician, was working for the Jersey City, NJ water supply. His father had suffered from amoebic dysentery as a result of service in the Civil War and consumption of infected water. Leal had previously held various posts in public health, and…
Fatal Certainty - Excerpts
Believe It…or Not?
October 22, 2023 The Washington Post has an article today about Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency mogul who is now awaiting trial on charges of fraud. It starts with the following paragraph: ‘As Sam Bankman-Fried (popularly known as SBF) gets ready to take the stand in his own trial, some fundamental questions remain unanswered. Did…