Power laws, extremely simplified.
Category: Videos
[YouTube] P-Value Hacking
We saw that 1) many metrics are stochastic, 2) what is stochastic can be hacked. This is the simplification of my work showing that “p-values are not p-values”, i.e. highly sample dependent, with a skewed distribution. For instance, for a “true” P value of .11, 53% of observations will show less than .05. This allows for hacking: in a few trials, a researcher can get a fake p-value of .01.
Paper is here and in Chapter 19 of SCOFT (Statistical Conseq of Fat Tails): Link to paper – A Short Note on P-Value Hacking
[YouTube] Fooled by Metrics (Correlation)
A maximally simplified presentation of how metrics are random variables, and how they can be gamed. Uncorrelated variables will produce a correlation in samples.
[YouTube] The Gates Foundation is Repeating the Errors of Mao Zedong
The Gates Foundation is financing genetically modified mosquitoes to control natural mosquitoes. This quick video:
1) Discusses the Four Pest Campaign by Mao that helped kill 15-50 Million people around 1960.
2) Explains why genetic modification has nothing to do with natural selection or animal breeding.
Scientism is not science.
[YouTube] Correlation: The Intuition (Doesn’t mean what people usually think it means)
A maximally intuitive presentation on what correlation is not, with maximally simplified concepts. [Note that I improvise 100% and I don’t prepare] There is a more technical lecture to come.
The technical paper is here: Fooled by Correlation: Common Misinterpretations in Social “Science”
[YouTube] Central Limit Theorem – a Nontechnical Presentation
The CLT allows anyone (including ignorant economists and psychologists) to do statistics by using prepackaged recipes coming from the Gaussian. What are the foundations? How does it work? Where does it not work?
[YouTube] The Law of Large Numbers – a very Intuitive Introduction
Everything in empirical science is based on the law of large numbers. Remember that it fails under fat tails.
[YouTube] Breaking down Intuitively the Concept of Standard Deviation
SIMPLIFIED TUTORIAL, 1 (in the series where we break down concepts intuitively):
Before we talk about correlation, let’s discuss standard deviation, its analog in dimension 1. People don’t get while using it as a metric for deviation!
See the whole book (gets technical beyond Chapter 5)
Link to the Book: Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails: Real World Preasymptotics, Epistemology, and Applications
[YouTube] Fat Tails: An Introductory Presentation
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
Nassim on CNBC Squawk Box: Bitcoin is a ‘gimmick’ and a ‘game,’ says it resembles a Ponzi scheme
“Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Friday criticized bitcoin as a “gimmick,” telling CNBC he believes it’s too volatile to be an effective currency and it’s not a safe hedge against inflation.
Basically, there’s no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and bitcoin going to zero. There’s no link between them,” Taleb said in a “Squawk Box” interview.
Link to the interview: cnbc.com/2021/04/23/bitcoin…