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Pinkers theory about how we have become more peaceful are apparently not backed by sufficient statistical evidence. I always take NNT’s statements with a grain

Pinkers theory about how we have become more peaceful are apparently not backed by sufficient statistical evidence. I always take NNT’s statements with a grain of salt, but the pure stats/math stuff seems solid.

tim333 9y ago
Taleb seems to be criticising stuff Pinker didn't really say. Pinker's arguments are mostly look at this graph / dataset, haven't the numbers gone down, maybe this is why and he isn't really trying to do sophisticated statistical analysis generally. Taleb then attacks and says he hasn't done sophisticated statistical analysis but that's not really Pinker's point.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
  But isn't Taleb's core criticism precisely the lack of rigorous statistics backing Pinker's claims? I mean you can't just write a book with claims in it backed by pretty graphs and data and then go "sorry, was never meant to be hard science lol". Because then we're in bullshitting territory, unless I missed your point?
  - tim333 9y ago
    You're dealing with the sweep of human history over centuries and there isn't really a clear data set to do stats on. So given that I think Pinker's approach is about as good as you can do. But none of it is 100% conclusive - it's more a bunch of fuzzy data pointing the same way. You can get his argument in about 10 mins in his talks - here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjT4HlNJNgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjT4HlNJNgI The book is much the same argument but with more data. Taleb has an argument that purely doing stats on war deaths we could be in a quiet patch before carnage as usual. The arguments against this are qualitative stuff like the spread of democracy, the internet, cellphones, the global economy etc which Pinker deals with and Taleb kind of ignores. As an aside https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/25/skin-in-the-game-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb-digested-read https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/25/skin-in-the-ga... is quite funny on taleb/pinker if you like that kind of thing
    - MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
      Yeah that Guardian article nails it. Taleb can't do nuance - its all black and white. I believe this is both his strength and his greatest weakness.

tim333 9y ago

Taleb seems to be criticising stuff Pinker didn't really say. Pinker's arguments are mostly look at this graph / dataset, haven't the numbers gone down, maybe this is why and he isn't really trying to do sophisticated statistical analysis generally. Taleb then attacks and says he hasn't done sophisticated statistical analysis but that's not really Pinker's point.

MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
But isn't Taleb's core criticism precisely the lack of rigorous statistics backing Pinker's claims? I mean you can't just write a book with claims in it backed by pretty graphs and data and then go "sorry, was never meant to be hard science lol". Because then we're in bullshitting territory, unless I missed your point?
- tim333 9y ago
  You're dealing with the sweep of human history over centuries and there isn't really a clear data set to do stats on. So given that I think Pinker's approach is about as good as you can do. But none of it is 100% conclusive - it's more a bunch of fuzzy data pointing the same way. You can get his argument in about 10 mins in his talks - here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjT4HlNJNgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjT4HlNJNgI The book is much the same argument but with more data. Taleb has an argument that purely doing stats on war deaths we could be in a quiet patch before carnage as usual. The arguments against this are qualitative stuff like the spread of democracy, the internet, cellphones, the global economy etc which Pinker deals with and Taleb kind of ignores. As an aside https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/25/skin-in-the-game-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb-digested-read https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/25/skin-in-the-ga... is quite funny on taleb/pinker if you like that kind of thing
  - MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
    Yeah that Guardian article nails it. Taleb can't do nuance - its all black and white. I believe this is both his strength and his greatest weakness.