uncertainty

uncertainty

/uncertainty19

Remixes of the nature of uncertainty described by Taleb, Kahneman & Marks

i talked to @linus_lu about why uncertainty is not the same thing as risk, and why it matters that we mistakenly use "risk" to refer to uncertain situations.

if you like the podcast, check out my series of essays unpacking different types of not-knowing: https://vaughntan.org/notknowing

The podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4WcBprPo1nzXyVkeX6EBIT

Constant reminder that just because I feel discomfort and don't have a good sensemaking framework for an uncertain scenario doesn't mean I can't make (good) decisions.

Hard to communicate to others; also hard to turn into habit.

Everyone is optimizing for their own incentives, and you never get to see all the inputs to their incentive function

They have no obligation to provide signal to you, or affirm the particular way you are platonifying the world

https://warpcast.com/dinesh.eth/0x87ca163d

tfw you realize that the real skill gap for leaders is knowing how to manage everyone else’s fear of uncertainty.

read more about strategic uncertainty: https://uncertaintymindset.substack.com/p/strategic-uncertainty

It really breaks people's brains when they have to make sense of someone who is building up one critical public good while tearing down another

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1832550322293837833

it's crazy how doctors once treated patients without washing their hands

but some day our descendants will wonder how we ever practiced "raw" democracy

how we just voted based on what candidates said, with no personalized AI agent to clean our headsets

https://dinesh.eth.limo/notes/headsets/

a minimum viable plan for Fighting Chance

https://dinesh.eth.limo/notes/plan-for-fighting-chance/

long-term project
details subject to change
will fill in the blanks as we go along

This convo I had with @visakanv almost 2 years ago still gets referenced

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZO4xO45rCY

"When I go out & talk to people at rallies, the thing I find least appealing is certainty.

People have no sense of there being a gray area or being unsure of how something should play out.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't be strong in your convictions, but I think you need to leave space to be wrong and to be curious.

Absolutely wild to me that formal study of cognitive biases started only 50 years ago

So much of human experience is downstream of our biases. We teach kids years of math & english, but don’t say anything about the defects that come with their headsets

We’ll look back at these times as our dark ages

Sad to hear of Daniel Kahneman's passing

Jonas Salk, creator of the polio vaccine once said, "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors"

Kahneman will be remembered as a good ancestor

To honor him would be to spread his ideas far & wide so that we all make better decisions

Had to explain Kahneman's System 1 & 2 to my nephew to help him process some advice. Here’s the analogy I used.

Each of us is wearing a VR headset like the Apple Vision Pro. This is our System 1. The headset has cameras that look out at the world & an inner display.

An extreme form of this is the current law on the books

Legislative statutes elicit emotions, assume knowledge, and enshrine a world-view

Laws are words just like tweets are

https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1766509149297189274

We take for granted that price measures value, but price just measures attention.

With the skillful use of modern media, attention can be herded away from value for long enough to trick the audience. Price can be used as evidence to show there's value when there is none.

This has some non-obvious implications.

(from Thinking Fast & Slow)

"Availability" : How easily an event or fact comes to mind and becomes a focus of your attention. Memories that trigger an emotional reaction have higher availability.

"Availability Heuristic" : Our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly & easily when making decisions.

arguing on twitter

scrolling through your feed

Alice: So nice that it's a Rabbit
Bob: No, actually it's a Duck

Alice: My chat all say it’s clearly Rabbit
Bob: Read the research, so obviously Duck

Alice: Rabbit! 😠
Bob: Duck! 🤬

A few retweets later...

My favourite Howard Marks quote is probably “risk means more things can happen than does happen”

"Strong opinions, weakly held" is often a strong opinion that is not weakly held

"Without some kind of direct experience to use as a touchstone, people don’t have the context that gives them a place in their minds to put the things you are telling them."

http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/

the highest-order bit

There’s a great tragedy in Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow

System 1 & 2 are critical concepts for people to understand. The foundation of how they make sense of the world.

But the terms “System 1” and “System 2” are so incompatible with System 1 that the ideas don’t go mainstream

Inb4 Vaughn Tan comes in and says uncertainty is ill defined!

/uncertainty is about

dealing with uncertainty
modern media & epistemology
managing psychology
suppressing ambiguity
alternate histories
Fighting Chance (https://twitter.com/fight_chance)

It's all connected you'll see!