For the past three decades I have written scenarios of the future for a living. I aim to make them detailed and plausible. That is all I can promise, because the more detailed each scenario gets, the less likely that scenario is to “come true.” Still, detailed scenarios, despite being…
Category: Rigorous Imagination
Politics
2024 Presidential Election Scenario 1: Trump Victory
For the past three decades I have written scenarios of the future for a living. I aim to make them detailed and plausible. That is all I can promise, because the more detailed each scenario gets, the less likely that scenario is to “come true.” Still, detailed scenarios, despite being…
Forecasting
Presentation to the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, Pennsylvania State University
I gave this talk a few months ago, and it captures a lot of my shtick on “fatal certainty,” “the cult of prediction,” and the importance of rigorous imagination in strategic decision-making. Enjoy… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxzth2cJICQ
Algorithms
SCA 5: The Wrecks of the Bayesian
A couple of weeks ago, in a terrible accident, the Bayesian, an imposing 184-foot-long sailing yacht topped by a 237-foot mast (one of the tallest in the world), sank, as the result of a sudden and violent storm off the coast of Sicily. The Bayesian was owned by “the Bill…
Rigorous Imagination
Summa Contra Argentum: Pars Secunda
My second objection to Nate’s book is his central dichotomy of “The River” and “The Village.” Nate defines “The River” thusly in the glossary at the end of the work: “A geographical metaphor for the territory covered in this book, a sprawling ecosystem of like-minded, highly analytical, and competitive people…
ISBM article on my ideas about the “Cult of Prediction”
It was a great honor to share the central themes of my book Fatal Certainty with such an accomplished group of practitioners and academics, exactly the sort of people who can help to change the mindset driving quantitative (and even older-style non-quantitative) single-point forecasting, and it’s even a greater honor…
Forecasting
Thinking, Fast, Slow… and Other
The psychologist Daniel Kahneman died March 27. He was one of the few thinkers who managed to influence thought in multiple fields, most notably psychology and economics, but also in international relations and many other spheres dependent on decision-making. In 2011, Kahneman published his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, to universal…
Artificial Intelligence
This Was Predictable…
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,…
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…