#mathematic #probability #rationality # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought #to-digest # Changelog ```dataview TABLE WITHOUT ID file.mtime AS "Last Modified" FROM [[#]] SORT file.mtime DESC LIMIT 3 ``` # Related - [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Black Swan|Black Swan]] - [[Extremistan]] - [[Mediocristan]] - [[Nassim Taleb]] - [[Availability bias|Availability heuristic]] - [[Mathematic]] - [[The prisoner's dilemma is the bell curve of game theory]] # TODO > [!TODO] TODO # The Bell curve is a dangerous heuristic In the book [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Black Swan|Black Swan]], [[Nassim Taleb]] argues against the [[Bell]] curve[^1] (or the normal/gaussian distribution) which seems widely used in many "sciences". My understanding of his logic is that from a very practical point of view, in trading for example, you need to make accurate predictions about the future, and the problem with the Bell curve is that it is hiding outliers. ![[Pasted image 20220729074637.png]] In other words, the Bell curve makes you believe that you live in [[Mediocristan]], i.e. the [[The Map is not the Territory|territory]] has no outlier, "[[Availability bias|all we see is all there is]]". But in the less glamorous world, [[Philosophy/Rationality/Models/Black Swan|Black Swan]]s happen and we rather live in [[Extremistan]], and our [[The Map is not the Territory|territory]] is getting more complex every day and less predictable, and less Bell-curvable. [^1]: https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/GIF.pdf