The problem is much more complicated than it seems to the casual, mechanistic user who picked it up in graduate school. Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now. It can even bankrupt the system (let's face it: use of probabilistic methods for the estimation of risks did just blow up the banking system).

Tags: nassim nicholas taleb, economy, 2008 economic crisis, black swan, statistics -All Annotations (23) -About

saved by 5 people, first byGerhard Stoltz on 2008-09-18, last byturker on 2008-09-30

more fromwww.edge.org

Chris Lott

Edge 257

Taleb on the limits of statistics

Tags: ToRead, statistics -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by 2 people, first byChris Lott on 2008-09-15, last byChris Lott on 2008-09-15

more fromwww.edge.org

Xavier AM 7Expand

The Reality Club: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt

Tags: no_tag -All Annotations (31) -About

saved by 2 people, first byTaryn . on 2008-09-11, last byXavier AM on 2008-09-12

more fromwww.edge.org

Consider these facts. The right wing says it cares about groups, rather than individuals; and yet it favors the most rampant form of 'dog-eat-dog' capitalism. The left wing is suspicious of markets and wants to even the playing field across citizens. The right wing claims that its positions will reduce crime and strengthen the families. Yet it is the most left wing states that have the lowest crime rate and the strongest, most stable marriages. Happiness ratings are highest in the socialist societies, while lowest in right wing authoritarian societies.
Right wing positions are more frequently associated with Protestant evangelicals and with traditional (Reagan) Catholics. Often the leaders of these groups (e.g. television evangelists, sinning priests) epitomize the opposite of the stated values. But both of these groups embrace forgiveness, absolution, being born again. Other groups—atheists, non-fundamentalist Jews and non-fundamentalist Protestants—do not have the option of absolution; they make firmer demands on themselves and are oppressed by their superegos.
Although Republicans defeated Democrats 25 to 20 in the 45 Presidential elections from 1828 to 2004, in the Senate Democrats outscored Republicans 3395 to 3323 in contesting 6832 seats from 1855 to 2006, and in the House Democrats trounced Republicans 15,363 to 12,994 in the 27,906 seats contested from 1855-2006.
conservatives are so much more generous than liberals, giving 30 percent more money (even when controlled for income), donating more blood, and logging more volunteer hours.
Only some professional philosophers, jurists, scientists and academics believe that the principal point of political argument (or most any argument) is, or ought to be, truth rather than persuasion, and that an argument's principal appeal should be reason rather than passion. To paraphrase Karl Rove: reason may be fine for studying and analyzing history and politics, but not for living or making them.
"It must be acknowledged that equality, which brings great benefits to the world, nevertheless… tends to isolate them from each other, to concentrate every man's attention on himself; and it lay open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification….
Moreover, since liberals and conservatives tend to associate more with like-minded individuals, these cascades would yield sizable increases in the number of people voting the way their friends wanted them to. About 60% of the time, one person's vote turned into two or more votes for their favorite candidate. One interesting implication here is that the more polarized we become by befriending only people with similar ideologies, the greater incentive we have to participate in politics.

Randy M 1Expand

Edge: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt

Tags: politics, religion, psychology, republican -All Annotations (58) -About

saved by 17 people, first byclutch01 on 2008-09-09, last byRandy M on 2008-10-08

more fromwww.edge.org

Daniel Wood

Edge: THE EMOTION UNIVERSE

Tags: no_tag -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by Daniel Wood on 2008-09-05

more fromwww.edge.org

Daniel Wood

EdgeVideo: MARVIN MINSKY

Tags: no_tag -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by 2 people, first bykaren smith on 2008-09-05, last byDaniel Wood on 2008-09-05

more fromwww.edge.org

Jason Romero

Edge 166: Dennett on Intelligent Design

Tags: evolution, religion, creationism -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by Jason Romero on 2008-05-14

more fromwww.edge.org

Chuck Brands

Edge: GIN, TELEVISION, AND COGNITIVE SURPLUS A Talk By Clay Shirky

Tags: no_tag -All Annotations (8) -About

saved by 3 people, first byanonymous on 2008-08-31, last byChuck Brands on 2008-09-15

more fromwww.edge.org

rongy stamer

EDGE 28

Tags: imported 23_01_08, More Reg Zone -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by rongy stamer on 2008-02-21

more fromwww.edge.org

Brett McLennan

Edge: THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2003

The citizens of your country are not just flesh and blood. They are, increasingly, flesh, blood, and machine. Let me explain why, and then why it matters. Andy Clark

Tags: andyclark, brain, prensky, quote -All Annotations (0) -About

saved by Brett McLennan on 2008-02-22

more fromwww.edge.org

1 - 20 Next ›

List 20 50 100

Notation: * = Private bookmark and comment|… = Clipping [?] | … = Public highlight [?]

Site Tags

More » Most Recent

Todd Suomela SeungBum Kim Randy M Suhit Anantula Mark Nelson José Mota Pru Mitchell Gene Roche markuos morley

More » Most Active

eyal matsliah KO - simonbelak Ognjen Strpić Marcus Tay Mark Nelson Taryn . Julia Lesage l.m orchard

Site Community for

Edge

Site Tags

More » Most Recent

More » Most Active

Diigo - Highlight and Share the Web!