The economy: "The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought" (Taleb)

[Waiting For Everyman]

This is a great 90-min. lecture given by Nassim Taleb in CA last February, sponsored by the LongNow (dot org) Foundation. Taleb was a derivatives trader, a risk statistics expert, all kinds of interesting things. :) He predicted the crash we're experiencing a long while ago. Intro from the link page below...

"Skeptical empiricist Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, has bracing things to say about the future. It is inevitable that we will be massively blindsided by events, because our understanding is misled by an array of beguiling illusions about reality. Some lessons: Events are not predictable, but consequences are, so focus on preparedness. Pay attention to elders, because they've experienced more Black Swans."

* Oops, forgot the link! :blush:

http://www.wholeearthfilms.com/taleb_nassim.html

[pitohui]

1. everybody predicted the crash "a long time ago"

i'm not impressed by that in the slightest, it would be more impressive if someone had actually predicted the crash when it happened

i read part (not all) of the black swan and what impressed me most was, really, how useless all this was

he has a great backstory but, at the end of the day, "the future is pretty much unknowable and uncertain and unpredictable things can happen" is not news i can use

[rucky]

2. He was on Charlie Rose the other night.

Scary interview!

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9713