What are Fat Tails? This is very introductory. See the whole book (gets technical beyond Chapter 5)
Link to the Book: Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails: Real World Preasymptotics, Epistemology, and Applications
Category: Writing
[YouTube] Nassim and Yaneer Bar-Yam discuss the French Study on the economic performance of zero-Covid countries
Countries that Panicked Early Did Best: A Conversation With Yaneer Bar Yam
Link to the Study – The Zero Covid strategy protects people and economies more effectively
Paper: SCALA POLITICA – Politics and Governance Under Scaling and Uncertainty
Most of the tension resides between 1) Embedded, complexity-minded, multiscale/fractal localism (politics as an ecology/complex adaptive system), and 2) Abstract one-dimensional universalists and monoculturalism (politics as a top-down engineering project). We go beyond the verbalism; we rely on information theory, complexity theory, uncertainty approaches (say fragility), and probabilistic rigor to look at politics with the same eyes as we examine highly dimensional interactive elements such as nature, biological systems, internet networks, and medical issues.
Link to Paper – academia.edu/38433249/Scala_Politica
Life Expectancy can be so grossly misunderstood by “experts”
Link to article – Some (Mis)Understanding of Life Expectancy, With Some Good News
Paper: Informational Rescaling of PCA Maps with Application to Genetics
Link to Paper – academia.edu/41442347/Informational…
[YouTube] Nassim and Yaneer Bar-Yam discuss the Danish Study on Face Masks
Nassim and Yaneer discuss the Danish study on Face Masks published by Bundgaard et al., “Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers.”
HYPOTHESIS TESTING IN THE PRESENCE OF FALSE POSITIVES: THE FLAWS IN THE DANISH MASK STUDY
[Medium] Foreword for Cut the Knot: Probability Riddles by Alexander Bogomolny
How do you learn a language? There are two routes; the first is to memorize imperfect verbs, grammatical rules, future vs. past tenses, recite boring context-free sentences, and pass an exam. The second approach consists in going to a bar, struggling a little bit and, out of the need to blend-in and integrate with a fun group of people, then suddenly find yourself able to communicate. In other words, by playing, by being alive as a human being. I personally have never seen anyone learn to speak a language properly by the first route. Also, I have never seen anyone fail to do so by the second one.
Read the complete foreword on Medium.
Get the book on Amazon.
[Medium] Religion, Violence, Tolerance & Progress: Nothing to do with Theology
If you think you will change the behavior of religious people by modifying the theologies, you are committing the standard Weberian fallacy. It is not about the religion; it is about clusters of people who happen to have that religion and their culture.
Continue reading on Medium: medium.com/incerto/religion-violence-tolerance-progress-nothing-to-do-with-theology
Paper: On single point forecasts for fat-tailed variables
Abstract
We discuss common errors and fallacies when using naive “evidence based” empiricism and point forecasts for fat-tailed variables, as well as the insufficiency of using naive first-order scientific methods for tail risk management.
We use the COVID-19 pandemic as the background for the discussion and as an example of a phenomenon characterized by a multiplicative nature, and what mitigating policies must result from the statistical properties and associated risks. In doing so, we also respond to the points raised by Ioannidis et al. (2020).
Link to Paper – sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/…
How to Price an Election: A Martingale Approach
Discussion with Dhruv Madeka of the paper: Election Pricing: a Martingale Approach and other related works.
Link to the Paper: Election Predictions as Martingales: An Arbitrage Approach