Eh! Il y a quand même des raisons de croire qu’il y a eu des périodes plus favorables que d’autres, ce n’est pas pour rien qu’en France l’intervalle entre la guerre de 70 et la guerre de 14 a été nommée “la Belle Epoque” (pour certains du moins).
People were better off in France in 1930 than they were in 1910 by a wide margin. It is true that things took a turn for the worse in 1914-1918, but if you look at the numbers… mortality, GDP per capita… it is really more of a dent in the curve than anything else.
I agree. I believe that Nassim Taleb might have argued that we only dismiss cognitive biases as bad because we fail to understand the underlying model.
Yes. I have not re-read Nassim in quite some time… so I do not quite remember exactly how he stated it.
It is certainly true that, some of the time, we dismiss biases as bad because we misunderstand what function they serve. That’s a bit like someone watching a Chess game and counting the pieces. It may seem irrational to trade a Queen for a bishop… but you should wait to see how it unfolds.
Eh! Il y a quand même des raisons de croire qu’il y a eu des périodes plus favorables que d’autres, ce n’est pas pour rien qu’en France l’intervalle entre la guerre de 70 et la guerre de 14 a été nommée “la Belle Epoque” (pour certains du moins).
People were better off in France in 1930 than they were in 1910 by a wide margin. It is true that things took a turn for the worse in 1914-1918, but if you look at the numbers… mortality, GDP per capita… it is really more of a dent in the curve than anything else.
Wikipedia has a long list of cognitive biases:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias
Sabine Hossenfelder likes to talk about cognitive bias:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/search?q=+cognitive+bias
More cognitive biases:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/good-news-is-no-news/
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-anxiety-of-choice-versus-the-tyranny-of-others-choosing-for-us/
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/against-environmental-pessimism/
There is a technical sense in which a certain degree of bias can be a good thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias%E2%80%93variance_tradeoff
Arguably instincts are biases that have been hardwired into brains in order to improve chances of survival.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
Bias is often a problem, but also bias is often useful.
I agree. I believe that Nassim Taleb might have argued that we only dismiss cognitive biases as bad because we fail to understand the underlying model.
“… we only dismiss cognitive biases as bad …” — should be: “… we sometimes dismiss cognitive biases as bad …”
Yes. I have not re-read Nassim in quite some time… so I do not quite remember exactly how he stated it.
It is certainly true that, some of the time, we dismiss biases as bad because we misunderstand what function they serve. That’s a bit like someone watching a Chess game and counting the pieces. It may seem irrational to trade a Queen for a bishop… but you should wait to see how it unfolds.