Author of quotes: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Page 3

Whatever was said, it is useful sometimes to ask the question: what is the probability of error of the expert? Questioning need not the methods of the expert, but only his confidence. (I myself, burned on our medicine, learned caution, and I advise everyone: if you went to the doctor with certain complaints, and he tells you that you have absolutely no cancer - don't listen to him).

If you give yourself a hard detail to study the biography of the Onassis - and I was young spent a few years, you'll notice a peculiarity: the work (in the conventional sense of the word) he was not interested. He hadn't even bothered to have his own Desk, not to mention the office. However, he does not just make a transaction - for this office is not necessary, - he rules the shipbuilding Empire, and this requires daily tracking information. Main working tool he served as a Notepad - the information stored there. Onassis spent his entire life in dealing with rich men and celebrities, and in courtship (and hunting) for women. He usually got up at noon. If he needed legal aid, he would gather his lawyers at two in the morning in some of the Paris club. He is said to possess irresistible charm and used it to manipulate people.
Try to look deeper. Here is a very likely effect of "fooled by randomness": downright tempted to call the success of the Onassis of his modus operandi. I don't know whether Onassis talented or just lucky (although I am convinced that his charm opened up all the doors), but I can accurately assess his course of action, based on the research of the relationship between the amount of information and understanding. Thus, the assertion that a thorough knowledge of the smallest details of your everyday routine may be useless or even destructive, checked, albeit indirectly, but quite effectively.

I have not seen another study where it was argued that senior administrators really benefit by spending endless hours in negotiations and acquisition of immediate information.

If you are an employee and depend on other people, the business view is a way to pretend that the results in this world of accidents depend on you.

Paul Slovic suggested the bookmakers to select from eighty-eight kinds of all kinds of statistical data on past horse races those that they seem to be most useful when calculating the odds. First, the bookmakers were given the ten most useful parameters and asked to predict the outcome of the competition. Then added ten more options, and again asked to predict the outcome. But additional information is not added to the results of accuracy, but significantly increased participants ' confidence in their rightness. So, we have proved: the information is harmful.

In 1965 Stewart Oskamp experimented many clinical psychologists of the folder, which contained all the new information about their patients, but diagnoses psychologists have not become more accurate with increasing amount of information. On the contrary, they are only assured of the correctness of the previous diagnosis. Put, in the sixty-fifth hardly worth much to expect from psychologists, however, this regularity is preserved in other areas.

Ideas we perceive as a property, but with property it's always hard to leave.

The trouble is that our ideas are sticky like glue: once inventing a theory, we will not abandon it. Therefore the winners are always the one who does not hurry up with theories.

Show two groups of people a blurry image of a fire hydrant. It should be so blurred that it was impossible to identify the object. For one group of people will increase the resolution slowly in ten techniques. For another, it's faster, in five stages. Stay in the moment when both groups will be in front of the eyes of the picture is the same definition, and ask what they see. The group that saw fewer intermediate steps, learns faster in the picture hydrant. Morality? The more information you give people, the more hypotheses will occur in the course and the worse will be the result. The man comes across more random debris, and he begins to confuse it with information.

We love all tangible to confirm, tangible, real, visible, concrete, familiar, already seen, catchy, visual, social, memorable, emotionally-Laden, flashy, stereotypical, exciting, dramatic, romantic, "cosmetic", the official; love the pseudo-scientific verbiage (slavopedia), inflated economists, statisticians, mathematical nonsense, Paphos, French Academy, Harvard business school, Nobel prize, dark business suits, white shirts and ties from Ferragamo, fiery speech, sensation! Especially we love narrative.

Do not need to identify yourself with the world of science, do not need to undergo amputation to squeeze into the Procrustean bed of specialization.

View from this point of view on the events of 11 September 2001. About two and a half thousand people were killed by the terrorist group of Osama bin Laden to the twin towers of the world trade center. Their families, as expected, received support from the various agencies and charities. But, according to studies, over the next three months of that year, thousands of people began a secret the victims of terrorists. How? Fear of flying has caused many to get behind the wheel of a car, and the roads much more dangerous than air routes. That period was marked by a significant increase in the number of accidents on the roads. The families of these victims have not received the support - they didn't even know that their loved ones were also victims of bin Laden.

It often happens that a political or social campaign draws policy in a favorable light, and the implicit evil consequences of such an action hit all the others and expensive for society. Take the campaign to save jobs: you show those whose positions now are not subject to reduction, and you take it as a great social victory. No one will notice those who can't find work because of the measures taken will lead to the closure of many vacancies.

The necessary funds are there, if, according to an old English proverb, "Rob St. Peter to bestow upon St. Paul's".