A Quote by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine.
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Markets work best when there's lots of information available and a historical track record to go on; they excel at predicting things like horse races, election outcomes, and box-office results. But they're bad at predicting things like who will be the next Supreme Court nominee, as that depends on the whim of the president.
One of the most important skills of the economist, therefore, is that of simplification of the model. Two important methods of simplification have been developed by economists. One is the method of partial equilibrium analysis (or microeconomics), generally associated with the name of Alfred Marshall and the other is the method of aggregation (or macro-economics), associated with the name of John Maynard Keynes.
Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).
Look at my track record for showing up to fights. Look at my track record of finishing fights. Look at my track record of getting fight night bonuses. Ask yourself if you think that if the UFC decided to truly put marketing dollars behind me that they couldn't sell me or my fights.
Until the 20th century, medicine was more like politics than physics. Its forecasts were often bogus and its record grim. In the 1920s, statisticians invaded medicine and devised randomised controlled trials. Doctors, hating the challenge to their prestige, resisted but lost. Evidence-based medicine became routine and saved millions of lives.
You know, when you see a haircut of yourself from around 12 or 13, it's rough. I also had really bad acne. Where I had to take this medicine - serious medicine - with warning on the label, like, "Do NOT take this if you are pregnant." Thank God I wasn't pregnant at the time. But yeah, I just had bad haircuts, bad acne, and bad clothes for a long time. And probably still right now.
The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.
[Economists' advice] is something like patent medicine - people know it is largely manufactured by quacks and that a good percentage of the time it won't work, but they continue to buy the brand whose flavor they like.
I like working together with different producers. Of course the process is different, producing a new track is like creating something all new, while reworking an already existing track is more like giving your own twist to the record.
In my own professional career, I've tried to establish my own identity and my own track record so that if I were to entertain a run for office, there would be my own track record for voters to look at.
In some aspects of alternative medicine we are fighting an almost medieval belief in magic but debunking such beliefs is like telling people that the tooth fairy is sniffing glue.
Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival.
Like medieval theologians we had a philosophy that explained everything to us in advance, and everything that did not fit could be readily identified as a fraud or a lie or an illusion... The perniciousness of the anti-Communist ideology of the Truman Doctrine arises not from any patent falsehood but from its distortion and simplification of reality, from its universalization and its elevation to the status of a revealed truth.
Our belief in salvation through the market is very much in the Utopian tradition. The economists and managers are the servants of God. Like the medieval scholastics, their only job is to uncover the divine plan. They could never create or stop it. At most they might aspire to small alterations.
I find that predicting the course of our lives is like predicting the weather. You might be able to predict your future in the short term, but the longer you look ahead, the less likely you are to be correct.
If someone doesn't like Saudi Arabia's human rights record, that doesn't mean that you are in any way attacking Muslims. You're attacking a government's policies and track record.
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