Knowing when Accuracy Matters
Accurate understanding of the situation. A view that maps with reality. That’s what we want in those who prescribe or decide policies. It’s also the reason many have contempt for academia, writes Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, Skin in the Game : “In academia there is no difference between academia and the real world; in the real world, there is.” But reality is messy, as Thomas Huxley pointed out ages back: “Many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.” Interventional-ism, the tendency to act and “fix” things, often leads to unmitigated disasters. Think Iraq. Taleb explains the problem with the interventional way of thinking: 1) “They think in statics, not dynamics” : Or as a famous military general once said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. 2) “They think in low, not high, dimensions” : The number of variables that impact an idea are numerous. After a point, trying to factor in for all of them ...