I've discussed both Taleb and Pinker in this blog at various times, but I've never brought the two of them together.
Yet reality has brought them together for me.
One of Pinker's books for a broad popular audience is called THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE (2011). It argues that the world is making progress toward peace. Violence still occurs, but it becomes less common century after century, peaceful methods of the resolution of differences advancing.
An example: it is almost possible to imagine France and Germany on opposite sides of a war in the next fifty years or so. Yet not TOO long ago as meta-historians reckon time they were on opposite sides of three different wars within about 3/4s of a century. What has happened? See Pinker's title for his answer -- the better angels of our nature are slowly prevailing and giving us a better world.
Taleb has been sharply critical of this book. With the help of statistican Pasquale Cirillo, Taleb wrote a couple of essays taking on what Cirillo and Taleb see as the statistical naivete of Pinker's arguments. Here's the link:
https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/longpeace.pdf
"Data do not support the idea of a structural change in human belligerence," they write.
Pinker replied, and he and Taleb have had an extended back and forth.
To be fair, here is one of Pinker's contributions to that back and forthing:
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pinker/files/comments_on_taleb_by_s_pinker.pdf
For those who don't understand why this column begins with a photo of a black swan: allow me to explain.
The black swan was a classic example in logic textbooks for a long time re: the limitations of induction. Europeans believed that "all swans are white" for centuries on good inductive grounds -- they had seen lots of white swans, no black ones. They were wrong, nonetheless.
Karl Popper used the example of the discovery of black swans as a paradigm of "falsification." A theory that leads to the conclusion that all swans must be white is falsifiable (which is a good thing) and in fact false (which is a bad thing if you've spent much of your professional career expounding the theory, but still good for the rest of the world to know).
Taleb used "black swans' to refer to events that are rare, but possible, and disruptive when they do happen. The problem with the usual "normal" bell curve in his view is that it understates the size of the tails; the extreme events on each side should be treated as more common than the bell curve treats them. Black swans do show up. The tails are "fat." (The tails of the curves, not of the swans.)
So, to Pinker's point, Taleb is saying that if there is a World War III it will be rare, but so disruptive that its rarity, the relatively peaceful decades that preceded it, will be of no significance. And the likelihood of this is greater than we would think we were lured into complacency by bell curves.
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I hesitated, at first, to comment. Have read works by both writers. Consider their subjects NOMA. Research, Stephen J. Gould. It is common for academics and/or public intellectuals to squabble with one another. Unfortunate, counter-productive, but common. Pinker has been critiqued before. I don't know about Taleb. My wish would have been they stay out of each other's business. But, such is not my call. Best of luck to both.
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"The problem with the usual "normal" bell curve in his view is that it understates the size of the tails; the extreme events on each side should be treated as more common than the bell curve treats them." Is this statement accurate, I have heard Taleb say that tail events are usually more rare in thick tail distributions, but dominate the mean...
ReplyDeleteIt is beginning to look like Russia and China have been preparing for attacking other nations for the last decade or so. The recent peace has been an illusion, or even worse a trap. Thankfully the Americans have maintained their big military budget.
ReplyDeleteAfter time, thought and consideration of Taleb's black swan notion, I find Pinker more credible..Better angels of our nature are more likely than an incessant, continuing sequence of random events, which have no basis in anything other than chance. I won't suggest or explore belief systems of these two thinkers. That could only foment greater grief. As to the Kopnik critique of Pinker, get your own show. Write something better. Or, stay home.
ReplyDeleteAll right. There are black swans. Popper and Taleb are right. However, black swans are not so rare. Not nearly as rare as white squirrels and white deer. Some time ago, when visiting Stratford, Ontario, there were black swans on the lake. There did not appear to be any societal issues, swanwise, with this contingency. Perhaps, Taleb should have kept his mouth shut. Alternatively, Pinker. I am not allowed to express my true feelings here. I would not anyway. I don't care much about public intellectuals. Unless they keep the story straight.
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