Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the Pandemic

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Episode: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the Pandemic
Pub date: 2020-07-27


Podcast Notes Key Takeaways  When taking risks, avoid risks of ruinIn other words: Take all the risks you want today, but make sure you’re around for tomorrowCollective risk doesn’t scale linearly from individual risk, if one person doesn’t wear a mask and they have COVID, they can put the lives of many others at risk“It’s just like wearing a mask. I wear a mask not for myself, but because a person I’m going to infect will infect maybe 10 more” – Nassim TalebWearing a mask is a small risk (uncomfortable and hot) but a big reward (stops the spread of COVID)“You reduce the chances that you are asymptomatically spreading a deadly disease to, potentially, as you say, dozens of people” – Nassim TalebPandemics rarely happen, but when they do they cause an existential risk so it’s important to stop them early on“Pandemics are the fattest-tailed thing, and that you got to kill them in the egg” – Nassim TalebNassim isn’t a fan of the World Health Organization: “It’s a bureaucratic organization that has been devastating for mankind because of its incompetence.” – Nassim TalebScience is not about evidence. Science is about properties.E.g: There are no clinical data on whether it’s unsafe to jump from an airplane without a parachute at 35,000 feet, but since we understand gravity, we don’t need a clinical studyAverages and forecasting are a lot less useful in science than people think

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about the pandemic with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Topics discussed include how to handle the rest of this pandemic and the next one, the power of the mask, geronticide, and soul in the game.

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