Unfortunately this is all too believable. Taleb’s covid hysteria was off the charts. Apparently he’d dismissed all the epidemiology that showed its seriousness was limited to those already vulnerable, such as the elderly. Instead he bought into the fear. It’s always disappointing when smart people don’t use their heads.
I have not read Ferguson’s vita, but I do have an acquaintance with his previous involvement in epidemiology in the past. Here is the first paragraph from a simple ChatGPT query: “A famous British epidemiologist known for modeling COVID-19 fatalities and other pandemics is Professor Neil Ferguson.” You can best take up your view with ChatGPT.
I went in the opposite direction when covid hit. I believed it was a relatively benign virus and hoped I would get it to develop natural immunity. I was so wrong, because I was operating from a false fact, that covid was a natural virus rather than tweaked in a lab. The spike protein can trigger so many pathologies. A friend avoided the virus and the shots, and I wish I had taken that approach.
The ultimate irony is that Taleb’s whole body of work points at tails being underrated as a driver of basically, well, everything. Then he dismisses the tails when talking about IQ, despite the fact that it’s the people at the high end IQ tail who clearly have an absolutely outsized impact on literally everything. IQ literally proves his point and fits in with his worldview, but he singles it out.
I have a suspicion that he might not really believe IQ is useless, but that he uses his objection to it as a club to beat back liberals and blank slatists and keep his western consensus bona fides intact.
"Then he dismisses the tails when talking about IQ, despite the fact that it’s the people at the high end IQ tail who clearly have an absolutely outsized impact on literally everything."
Yep, and is one of the reasons (smart fraction) why our society has been shielded these last few generations from effects of our intellectual decline through increases in third world low IQ migration and spiteful mutants.
Greg Cochran showed that NNT's "barbell" theory of investing based on his Black Swan outlook did not actually make more money. Cochran has in general not been impressed with Taleb. Up until I started reading Greg, I was a fan of Nassim and found his theories persuasive. He certainly is a master of finding persuasive anecdotes. But once the seal was broken I could see things wrong with a few of NNT's theories, and stopped following him.
I actually think Taleb has done a lot of good work, and very much enjoyed 'The Black Swan' and 'Antifragile'. But his arguments against IQ are just bad.
Ironic, I was a fan of Cochran until he went crazy wrt the Covid scamdemic. As I remember, he became enamored with fatality models by the likes of epidemiologists like Neil Ferguson whose track record in these matters had been extremely poor in the past. According to Cochran, Covid was going to kill 2M in the USA alone. His stridency toward those commenting in the negative on his blog turned me off and I never went back to reading him. Until then he seemed curmudgeonly, but fairly smart, quick, and insightful. Now I’m not so sure about the later. In short, he panicked which is a bad look for a scientist in the best of times—much less a pandemic.
He is rude to people who disagree with him (including me), and he has an excellent memory about it. As for Covid, at least 1.1 M did die in the US, and that is probably an undercount. The final total is very unlikely to have been 2M however.
We will never know the true number of U.S. citizens who died of Covid. Never. The statistics are totally confounded. Death certificates vary from State to State, hospitals were incentivized to record COVID for admissions, etc. No need to argue the point further, better people than me have describe such previously.
I very much dislike resorting to "no need to argue the point further" as an attempt to evade disagreement. So I will argue the point, via Scott Alexander, whose rebuttal and making the case I find persuasive.
Yes, Taleb is just a guru. He got lucky but much of what he says isn’t true at all, it’s just appealing. It’s not surprising he is revered by the finance bros and it’s not surprising he comes up with all kind of bad opinions when it comes to real matters.
Finance is mostly a scam for the rich to get even richer so I’m rather suspicious of anyone coming from that field anyway, even though they are definitely very smart people working there field, they are most definitely corrupt, so not to be trusted.
A minor gripe of mine: people report IQ scores like, say, 125 or 145, which to the lay public conveys very little intormation, except maybe that 145 must be "a genius." It would be much more informative to phrase it in terms of how rare (or common) a given score is. I don't have a conversion table in front of me, but an IQ of 145 is not rare at all, certainly not in a society of many millions of people (is it one out of a thousand, I forget?). I've been told that one out of a hundred thousand is the threshold for doing top notch theoretical physics. That's much more informative than saying an IQ of 170 or whatever it is.
Unfortunately this is all too believable. Taleb’s covid hysteria was off the charts. Apparently he’d dismissed all the epidemiology that showed its seriousness was limited to those already vulnerable, such as the elderly. Instead he bought into the fear. It’s always disappointing when smart people don’t use their heads.
Worse, Taleb bought into discredited epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson’s modeling.
WTF? Ferguson is a mediocre historian with a knack for self-promotion, not an epidemiologist.
Hirsi Ali definitely married down there.
I have not read Ferguson’s vita, but I do have an acquaintance with his previous involvement in epidemiology in the past. Here is the first paragraph from a simple ChatGPT query: “A famous British epidemiologist known for modeling COVID-19 fatalities and other pandemics is Professor Neil Ferguson.” You can best take up your view with ChatGPT.
I went in the opposite direction when covid hit. I believed it was a relatively benign virus and hoped I would get it to develop natural immunity. I was so wrong, because I was operating from a false fact, that covid was a natural virus rather than tweaked in a lab. The spike protein can trigger so many pathologies. A friend avoided the virus and the shots, and I wish I had taken that approach.
I covered the entirety of Taleb’s article as a five-year anniversary: https://hereticalinsights.substack.com/p/iq-and-talebs-wild-ride
Excellent piece
—NC
The ultimate irony is that Taleb’s whole body of work points at tails being underrated as a driver of basically, well, everything. Then he dismisses the tails when talking about IQ, despite the fact that it’s the people at the high end IQ tail who clearly have an absolutely outsized impact on literally everything. IQ literally proves his point and fits in with his worldview, but he singles it out.
I have a suspicion that he might not really believe IQ is useless, but that he uses his objection to it as a club to beat back liberals and blank slatists and keep his western consensus bona fides intact.
"Then he dismisses the tails when talking about IQ, despite the fact that it’s the people at the high end IQ tail who clearly have an absolutely outsized impact on literally everything."
Indeed, that is true.
Yep, and is one of the reasons (smart fraction) why our society has been shielded these last few generations from effects of our intellectual decline through increases in third world low IQ migration and spiteful mutants.
Greg Cochran showed that NNT's "barbell" theory of investing based on his Black Swan outlook did not actually make more money. Cochran has in general not been impressed with Taleb. Up until I started reading Greg, I was a fan of Nassim and found his theories persuasive. He certainly is a master of finding persuasive anecdotes. But once the seal was broken I could see things wrong with a few of NNT's theories, and stopped following him.
I actually think Taleb has done a lot of good work, and very much enjoyed 'The Black Swan' and 'Antifragile'. But his arguments against IQ are just bad.
—NC
Ironic, I was a fan of Cochran until he went crazy wrt the Covid scamdemic. As I remember, he became enamored with fatality models by the likes of epidemiologists like Neil Ferguson whose track record in these matters had been extremely poor in the past. According to Cochran, Covid was going to kill 2M in the USA alone. His stridency toward those commenting in the negative on his blog turned me off and I never went back to reading him. Until then he seemed curmudgeonly, but fairly smart, quick, and insightful. Now I’m not so sure about the later. In short, he panicked which is a bad look for a scientist in the best of times—much less a pandemic.
He is rude to people who disagree with him (including me), and he has an excellent memory about it. As for Covid, at least 1.1 M did die in the US, and that is probably an undercount. The final total is very unlikely to have been 2M however.
“As for Covid, at least 1.1 M did die in the US…”
We will never know the true number of U.S. citizens who died of Covid. Never. The statistics are totally confounded. Death certificates vary from State to State, hospitals were incentivized to record COVID for admissions, etc. No need to argue the point further, better people than me have describe such previously.
I very much dislike resorting to "no need to argue the point further" as an attempt to evade disagreement. So I will argue the point, via Scott Alexander, whose rebuttal and making the case I find persuasive.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-evidence-that-a-million-americans
Yes, Taleb is just a guru. He got lucky but much of what he says isn’t true at all, it’s just appealing. It’s not surprising he is revered by the finance bros and it’s not surprising he comes up with all kind of bad opinions when it comes to real matters.
Finance is mostly a scam for the rich to get even richer so I’m rather suspicious of anyone coming from that field anyway, even though they are definitely very smart people working there field, they are most definitely corrupt, so not to be trusted.
Didn't Kareem Carr suggest 2+2 = 5?
https://beunbound.us/blog/harvard-two-plus-two-equals-five-kareem-carr/
Great revisit of this subject.
As I have said before, it appears Taleb has an agenda.
I think the important word 'against' is missing in the paragraph about 'Scientific Accomplishment', between 'evidence' and 'his'.
Thanks — fixed.
—NC
A minor gripe of mine: people report IQ scores like, say, 125 or 145, which to the lay public conveys very little intormation, except maybe that 145 must be "a genius." It would be much more informative to phrase it in terms of how rare (or common) a given score is. I don't have a conversion table in front of me, but an IQ of 145 is not rare at all, certainly not in a society of many millions of people (is it one out of a thousand, I forget?). I've been told that one out of a hundred thousand is the threshold for doing top notch theoretical physics. That's much more informative than saying an IQ of 170 or whatever it is.
Who knew Talib was a science denier? I
suppose liberals fall hard, even on their own swords. Anyone who has had good as well as bad secretaries knows that IQ is real and meaningful.