WEBVTT - Nassim Taleb on What Bitcoiners, Anti-Vaxxers and Deadlift Maxis All Get Wrong 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:14.440 Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.440 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, welcome back. 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.759 You've been on vacation. It's so exciting to be recording 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.480 an episode with you again. It wasn't I missed you 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.400 for real. I missed you for real. Oh, thank you. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.000 I actually I think this might be the first time 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:32.600 in my life that I've been happy to come back 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:38.080 from vacation. Honestly, a lot happened while I was away. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:39.680 It was beautiful, by the way. I went to the 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.960 Seychelles for two weeks. It's not I'm not a huge 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.199 beach vacation person, so it wasn't a place that I 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.520 would normally go to, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Highly 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.640 recommend it. I think it's ruined me for all other 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.600 beaches in the future. But I am happy to be 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.720 back and recording with you once again. And I missed 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.920 you too, Joy, thank you. It's great to have you 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.440 back and you sound great. You know what I did 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.559 this week? I can take a guest, but go ahead. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.560 I did a deadlift. I did I've been I've been. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.040 I've been lifting weights at the gym and I did. 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.520 I'm not gonna say what I was about to say, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.280 Dare I asked, I'm not going I'm still very weak. 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.520 I'm not going to say what my pr is, my 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.160 personal record is. But it was very satisfying. I felt 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.840 good and now I'm like gonna keep doing I've been 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.760 doing weights for a little while. But Joe, is it? 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.200 Is it a real deadlift if you're not bragging about 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.280 it on Twitter? When I'm when I hit bragging level, 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.960 I will definitely brag. But uh, I bet everyone can 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.760 figure out where I am going with that, because we're 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:48.160 going to be speaking today with one of the foremost 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.440 When I think of our this guest, I think of 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.000 as many things, but I think of him as one 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.560 of the foremost deadlift advocates in public. I of course 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.920 know exactly who you're talking about. Um, this is somewhat 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:05.080 and you know, certainly a personality and a character, especially 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:09.040 online on Twitter. I think we've both at various times 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:14.400 been blocked by him. Have quite a few people. Yeah, 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.840 so I think I tweeted this while I was on vacation, actually, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.720 But one of the craziest things to me about twenty 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.160 twenty three is that I find myself not only unblocked 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.919 by this guest, but also nodding my head yes, sperously 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.120 in agreement with him on a variety of topics. Twenty 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.840 twenty three is a very weird year for that very reason, 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.720 because it's like, oh yeah, totally right. Anyway, we just 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.440 gotta get right into it. So we are, of course 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.520 speaking with the one and only Nessim Nicholas Teleb. He's 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.800 a professor at NYU. He is an advisor at the 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.400 Terrorist Fund Universa. He is the author of several books, 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.079 including The Black Swan and Anti Fragile and Fooled by Randomness. 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.760 And he is a deadlift advocate. And he has also 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.359 gotten into cycling lately, which is interesting. And he is 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.799 a flaneur. I don't even know where to start. This 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.760 seems thank you so much for joining us. Every time 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.800 I see the word flaneur, I forget what it means. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.760 What does it mean? Yeah? I have to remember exactly 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.200 what it means, because the original designation is for someone 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:26.320 who walks around aimlessly, and I tried to journalize it 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.919 to someone who loves things aimlessly just for the fun 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.800 of it, without the prescribed plan. And if you find 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.920 something interesting, then you go with it. So it's funny 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.480 because I started off by saying that you I could 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.600 think of you as a deadlift advocate. But this year 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.240 you're getting into road biking, which is interesting because you know, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.000 this kind of very different type of exercise. It's not 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.400 the type of exercise I associate you with. It's a 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.320 little a cyclist. Why what's the deal with getting into cycling? 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:01.400 I was a cyclist. We met last which is about 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.320 fifteen years ago, and I had a near miss with 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.839 the truck. And then I switched to a combination a 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:14.520 lot of walking and some intense but short episodes of 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.240 weight listing by weight lifting, and then I, you know, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.560 I had to follow the evidence, started reading the literature, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.960 and I realized that weight listing is not good for 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.120 your heart. So it's actually it's not good at all 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:31.080 on its own, but it's it's needed, it's necessary, but 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.960 you know, let's see evidence. It causes out stiffness a 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:35.960 lot of things. You know, there's an adaptation. What you 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.280 want to lift very heavy objects. Your body adapts by 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.960 doing things that are not helpful full lock term survivals. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:47.120 You need to compensate, and how do you compensate instead 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.559 of just walking something a little more intense than walking, 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.599 but not very intense. So here you have a vart veil, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.560 a lot of a lot of Arabic exercise low grade, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.880 and the occasional full body weight list. So just a 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.360 variation on what I was doing. But you've got to 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.839 follow the otherness. I mean, the literature is stark that 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.479 wait listening is not follow your heart, but that because 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.919 it causes some adaptation by your heart that I'm not 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.880 very good, causes lock term heart failure. And if you 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.920 that by doing overcompensate by doing Arabic exercise, which is 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.640 more naturalistic than you got both. I think flexibility is 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.480 also a sort of underrated component of that as well. 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.359 But so I'm trying to think how to take it 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.560 from here, and I'm very I'm going to try to 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.680 avoid doing a lot of media navel gazing in this interview. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.080 But there is one question that I have to ask, 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.000 just because I think it feeds in to a wider 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.359 point about your online presence. But why did you block 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:54.000 me and Joe and why have we been unblocked? I 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.760 think a largely a lot of my blocking is not 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.240 done by me directly, by some automated boss. You had 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:05.640 to understand that I got besieved by finance people, and 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.960 you know that time don't get wrong with the general 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:14.440 finance ground and by the crypto people, particularly after I 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.719 took positions that are not very favorable to the crypto people. 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.000 So you do block and cleanse up my sheet. Just 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.279 block things. And I had someone who happened to be 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.400 in the Ukraine at the time helping me. You know, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.920 do automatic blocking. I believe, believe it or not the 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.119 best thing to do with your Twitter feed. Just block 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:38.159 groups because then then things become clean. Oh, I believe 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:42.599 it for sure. So so unfortunately that you guys, But 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.800 then I blocked people when I realized went too far. 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.480 Thank you. So the first reaction is called gianni gativa. 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:51.720 It's like you close the door and then you let 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:57.479 in those you think that we're excluded or will not 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.800 degrade defeat. That's a great answer. Doesn't have anything to 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.280 do with disagreements. It has to do with the style, right. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.360 But I think the people that that annoy the most 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:14.440 of those are lippicks because of diversity conversation and lippicklers 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.440 are I meantrolls. You can see the trollstickers people don't 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.880 notice the liptickage. Well, since you mentioned it already, let's 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.040 just start with the crypto thing, because what's interesting to 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:31.840 me about your disagreements with crypti people, bitcoin maximalists, etc. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.920 Is many of them, i think, looked up to you 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.840 and they read antifragil and that right, and they read 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.040 anti fragile, and they read fulled by randomness, and they 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.600 read the black Swan, and that informed them that it's like, okay, 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.680 we need to adapt, get it, get into this currency 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.280 that's very hard, that is anti fragile, Bitcoin the ultimate 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.080 anti fragile currency. And so to their mind, they were 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.800 many of them looked read your work and this is 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.600 what they took away. And so what did they get wrong? Okay, 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.680 So the first thing is that my work is first 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.240 about avoiding tailor risk. Basically, if we want to do well, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.320 we must first survive. And it's not like a separable condition. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.680 So one is going to avoid fragilities. And it turns 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.160 out that as much as a federal reserve induces for 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.360 agility in a system, and as mush as I dislike Bernachy, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.360 it turns out that bitcoin is a lot worse. It 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.600 is itself a very fragile commodity, and it got of 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:38.240 course cartaeiled, you know, Russia people, it's a very small 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.480 level of people start controlling it, and it's fragile in 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.960 a sense that if one day, if the you know, 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.920 all the miners go to the beach for one day, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.559 for an hour, it's god. Whereas if you have gold, 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.640 I have a necklace here. The gold necklace, if I 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:58.400 leave it on the gaund for one hundred thousand years, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.160 will still be gold. It may its financial value, but 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:06.120 its physical quality will will not be altered. Whereas bitcoin 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.800 it's just a book entry that needs to be maintained 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.360 and would collapse. But a lot of other things promised 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.400 about bitcoin that are not delivered, like it was meant 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.480 to be a transactional thing, don't out to be a 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.240 speculative item. So I realized quickly that I made a 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.760 mistake with bitcoint like I made a mistake by avoiding 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.280 a Roman exercise, and of course I was I was 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.560 at some point an owner of bitcoin. I publicly said 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.800 that I made a mistake, and I went short bitcoin later, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.520 but it was not good for the system, and I 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.840 tlied that the paper that was published from quantity to finance, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.600 where you look at hey, what's the currency, what's the 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:47.920 inflation hedge? What is a refuge investment? And Bitcoin satisfied 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.040 none of these. So people, of course they get angry 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.280 because because they had a feeling that they're going to 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.680 believe you for shading your mind. They don't realize that 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.000 I'm not selling that, you know, a recipe, I'm selling process. 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.840 Certo is the way of thinking, way approaching things, and 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.800 if you realize that something is fragile, immediately do something 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:12.440 about it. So and remarkably, it's the same fluster of 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.840 people who read anti fragile and thought that, hey, you know, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.240 what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's that's get 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.680 affected with the vaccine was that was covid, and let's 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.800 ignore covid. We're going to make a stronger it's going 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.839 to kill a few people. So that kind of eugionism 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.640 and that kind of stuff I realized was an imficult 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:36.720 to me, profoundly indamicul to me. So such the same 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:42.720 crowd that was denying COVID saying, hey, you know, it's 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.560 just a virus, it's going to make you stronger, didn't 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.400 realize that they explained an antifragile jumping one foot will 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.120 make your bones stronger, but a thousand feet will not 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.760 help you too much. I mean it may help you know, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.640 the caretaker and people who organize funeral, but not not 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.000 you that so, so I realized very quickly there's a 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.880 cluster of people who were most into Bitcoin is a 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.480 very point, very naive reasoning, extremely naive reasoning thinking, hey, 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:13.760 you know, it's an inflation hedge. As we saw it 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.480 was a reverse inflation hedge. But the good thing that 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.960 I figured out quickly to pull out in time, in 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:22.960 sense that it lost its value and we realized there 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.040 was inflation in the same group of people who were 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.080 into conspiracies, all generals conspiracies. And that's not the crowd 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.240 I want that. That's not the crowd I want to 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:38.480 be associated. You mentioned that bitcoin was bad for the system, 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.280 and I think that's sort of the connective tissue that 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.320 leads into some more recent events with the banking system. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.120 But can you talk a little bit more about that, 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.040 like how do you see bitcoin? Actually, yeah, okay, let's 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.480 look at why why we have bitcoin and why we 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.600 are talking about the point. Effectively, it's the incompetence of 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.199 I want to call Bernancism, you know, because sometimes you 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.440 got to put name to a tendency. That the federal 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.400 reserved job is not to do structural things. That fellow 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:15.400 reserved job is to engage in monetary policy and typically 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:20.040 the short term monitoring policies to and their mission was 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.840 an asthment and will be the stability of the United 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.840 States first. So their job is too ease. When when 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:32.440 economic condition and you know, threat inflation, and when when 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.679 a hard economic condition, but that you cannot replace a 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.439 structural policy with a moneitoring polst. In other words, we 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.199 had a problem was debt, and you can't solve that 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.320 problem by putting interest rates at zero for a long time, 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.200 or if you put interface at zero, it should be 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.400 for short periods of time while looking for an alternative. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.680 So when they did for fifteen years, they put interface 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:01.479 at zero, and that that does create tumors were the first. 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.040 So let's say the root of everything is interest rates 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.160 at zero, which ironically created the point and of course 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:13.440 created balls. Is h I would say posy like class 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:18.440 of investments, because there's no time value of money anymore. 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.480 Your discount you don't know what even you know what 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.800 discount rate is. And we created generation of people who 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.560 don't know the cost of funds, cost of money. So 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:34.319 and anyone with fifteen years of experience in finance, you know, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:37.720 and no more doesn't know anything about interest rates. So 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.559 interest rates as zero create stumers. Read estate values go 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:46.240 up dramatically because of custom holding mansion is close to 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.160 nothing or was closed nothing. And created a class of 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:55.959 investment called you know, VC funds. And these were in 0:13:56.120 --> 0:14:00.560 the old days were promising you cash flow, okay, cash flow. 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.920 Today they're promising you around the funding where you're going 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.760 to sell it to someone else. So we moved from 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.240 the classical cash flow model or even if you're negative 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.800 cash flow, the promise of future cash flow to the 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.959 promise of selling the company to someone else. And you 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.960 have millionaires in Silicon Valley who you know, got rich 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.560 from companies that never made the penny. So that's that's 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:26.160 the background. And of course you're going to have a 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.560 story like the going take off because it doesn't cost 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:50.720 that goal. Since you mentioned it, I'm curious COVID specifically 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.520 in your criticism of anti vactors, and I find that 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.280 one of the things that I think is interesting, is 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.280 it's not clear to me how you think about these 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.880 problems because they're okay, the vaccine is fairly new, it 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:10.600 seems to be relatively untested as a technology, and when 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.320 there are other sort of scientific advantage that you've really 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.360 recoiled against. For example, I think you're very critical about 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.680 GMO crops and you're worried about the tail risks posed 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.240 by those. So can you talk a little bit about 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.240 your framework and thinking about why is something like the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:31.640 covid vaccine you're comfortable with, whereas something like GMO crops 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:36.080 to you, creates an uncomfortable level of tail risk. Okay, 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.280 so before we start, let's say that you're not you 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:43.960 cannot compare vaccines to GMOs because vaccines are tested an individuals, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.800 so you can see the side effect individual GMOs would 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.640 be a systemic they spread to the environment. And then 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:52.800 also you're not thinking of the vaccine, you know, for 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:58.120 because because you think it's that they stood or you 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.680 know it's going to be pleasant. So we take it 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.360 the vaccine. We've got a plot the vaccine versus covid, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:09.760 and covid was not something benign, so comparing it's a 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.200 risk management difference between two items and two things I'd 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.960 like to mention here. The first one is that very rapidly, 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.840 you know, I waited a little bit, and very rapidly 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.320 I saw that I had very large number of vaccinated 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.800 people and no side effects, and people say, well, we 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.640 needed more time. They didn't understand that you can replace 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:35.040 sample size. Time was sample size in the sense that 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.600 if it's something related to genetic states are going to 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.320 take place, or something of the genetic nature, like cancer program, 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.400 that it would be the equips that the large sample 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.880 size compensates for lack of time. I actually overcompass because 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.320 we have the illusion that after Hiroshima people got cancer 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.520 about twelve and a half years later. That's not true. 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.840 Some people got cancer within a few months. But the distribution, 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.840 there's a distribution because we need X number of mutations. 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.400 Like when you go to Las Vegas. For an individual 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.720 to win eight times in a row take decades years 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:12.840 of waiting. But if you have a billion people in 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.080 a casino, you're going to have that, you know, every hour. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.600 So this is where this is where very rapidly I 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.560 realized that the vaccine that not really pose a threat 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.280 of that nature, and I wrote technical comments of that. 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.719 But to go back to the pandemic, what would you 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.560 know my thinking? You know, basically my specialty is fat 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.240 tailed events. See, I've don't spend all my life dealing 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.760 with that central problem. How do you do statistical pools 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.679 for fat tailed stuff like masonic pandemic happened. I started 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:50.159 publishing in that field because people didn't realize that you 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.400 have to think differently when it comes to fat tails. 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.879 You see, you cannot take averages, you shouldn't do ni 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.720 forecasting and get involved in a few polemical discussions. But 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:05.640 published like seven or eight papers in ronals on on that, 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.159 including masks. And I may have one on vaccine if 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.720 people keep you denying the French or the risk defferential 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.919 between vaccine and the disease. But there's a lot of 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:20.160 stuff people don't get about the COVID. The first one, 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.360 I would say that it is not something that affects 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.480 the old. It affects everybody in proportion for the mortality, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.200 so it's not particularly And otherwise if you say, okay, 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.920 it's only in the old, then you should you should 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.880 say okay, let's stop dealing with cancer, because cancer affects 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:39.840 the elderly disproportionately, or let's stop carreology. It costs too 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.600 much money. You know, Jim Bros. Don't need it because 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.080 they're thirty eight years old. Um, it's the same. It's 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.959 the same iselm. It builds us in proportion to age. 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.880 So in other words, if you your your mortality risk 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.440 goes up by eight percent, regardless about the age of thirty. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:03.399 Of course above some specihold and that's not well understood. 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:08.480 So it's not an old person problem. And as diseases 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.720 not covid by itself. So the bunch of things people 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.600 didn't get. But I you see, I was known initially 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.240 by you other people for the Blacks soon as the 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.520 author of full Barandimus, and that book was misunderstood. Initially 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.200 I was saying that there is I'm not saying there's 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.480 you know, no skills, that there are no skills. I'm 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.399 saying the world is more rather than you think. But 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.240 I'm not saying it's all rival Well, actually I wanted it. Yes, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.960 let me finish one point. Vandom is connected to the idea. 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.280 So one of the messages of the full barandomness is 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.040 and we tend to be swayed by anecdotes, and I 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:56.000 noticed that over time things got worse. I mean, the 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.480 circle is sold I don't know, seven eight nine million 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.000 copies world by But at the same time, and a 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.639 lot of people who made the same mistake. People are 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.760 swayed by the anecdote. So so whether it's COVID vaccines, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.920 whether it's a nice story with a midcoin, whether it's 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.600 stuff about elections, were swayed by the anecdote. So our 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.840 world is becoming more complex requires more statistical sophistication, while 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:29.960 social media is driving the best to the most primitive 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.560 way of thinking. Sorry to interrupted your trace. No, no, no, 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.919 this is actually exactly what I wanted to ask you, 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.520 something that I've actually always wanted to ask you for 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.560 a long time. Is is there at tension between you know, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.199 you say in a lot of your works that we 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:51.199 shouldn't trust experts necessarily you should be wary of you know, 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.840 I think you call them either bullshitters or other other words. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.399 But but wait, but on the other hand, you know 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.600 it's something like the vaccine. I doubt that the average 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.320 person has the scientific background to look at the literature 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.000 and say, oh, this makes sense or it doesn't. And 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.480 in that case, it seems like we should be trusting experts. 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.439 So how do you square those two things? Yeah, no, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.760 I made in the black swan to answer your a 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:24.200 precise question. Had to explain which fields in which field 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.119 the expert as an expert, and it's which field the 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.639 expert is what I call it the s met word. Okay, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.000 And the difference has to do with fat delay. If 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:40.040 the micro is much easier to microbs than microbs, so 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:42.359 that lewis, the dentist is going to be an expert 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.080 a dentist, the plumber is an expert at being a plumber, 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.440 but the micro economists, we're not sure is an expert 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.320 at microeconomics. And the same thing happens in medicine if 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.800 the bologists were not really experts of what's going on 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.800 because it's fatal, but doctor doctor and visual doctor is 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.200 going to be an expert. And we're dealing with tim 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.919 tailed processes. When you look at the time series for 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.639 vaccines and things like that, vaccine is it's a tailed, 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.200 it's not a fat tailed one. So the that's the 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.040 difference with GMO. So sim tailed was the sat tailed 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 And of course it would be too complex to explain here, 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.200 but I explained it in the Black Swan. It's a 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.520 difference between the income of a speculator and the income 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.359 of the dentist. One has winner, the winner they call effects. 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:36.080 The other one is more narrowly distributive. So this is 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.879 where where I saw mainly a difference between experts and 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.040 non actually later on and it's some more thinking and 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:44.199 scanning the game, saying how can you solve the problem 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:47.160 and the things The difference is scan in the game 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:49.840 that if you have skin in the game, then you 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.040 have survival, and then we know if you're an expert, 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:56.479 or if there's any way to bust your claims okay 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.359 and and make you exit the pool, then then of 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:04.159 course an expert will will have a filter eliminating pseudo 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:09.080 experts and particularly those who represent risks for others. A 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.560 surgeon who you know, does that surgery is going to 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.880 ex the pool. So there's a mechanism and surgery, there's 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:21.760 a mechanism economic life. A grocer who doesn't understand NAMA 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.080 sheets or doesn't stand cash flow will go out of business. 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:29.920 But there are places where the process is delayed, namely technology, 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:35.240 namely microeconomics. Economics. I guess the difference. I keep going 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:37.600 back to the difference. Say your plumber is an expert 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:42.760 at plumbing, but forecaster is not an expert that forecasting. 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:45.480 And there are fields where you have a lot of 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:48.840 b s, like for example, psychology, psychology or what I mean, 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:52.600 economics are called not clinical the one that deals with 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:56.880 biases and stuff like that, and there's all bs and 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:01.000 they can't be caught, whereas medicine is is on firm grounds, 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.200 of course, and it's not perfect. Medicine made a lot 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:09.040 of stakes, but it's fundamentally self correct. So I get 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:11.760 the distinction. But I guess my other question is you 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:16.320 yourself as a flaneur, and um, you know a thinker, 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.000 you sort of you. You go from topic to topic 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:23.240 to topic, and you know you say that you're my rule. 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:25.960 Let me tell you my rule, right. My rule is 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:30.440 I published in purely journal and the topics two professional. 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:33.600 And that's my problem with Peterson all the guys is 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:37.880 that I speak about men that I have seven papers, 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:43.600 and I mean more than the local doctor in medical 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:48.399