4 ms·

Faith can't be calculated, and it's the most unpredictable thing ever (even more unpredictable than women or children...). And, there's no chance ever that fai

by lst 19y ago

Faith can't be calculated, and it's the most unpredictable thing ever (even more unpredictable than women or children...). And, there's no chance ever that faith will become insignificant. Look at Russia, a real religious boom now, after communism tried to kill faith... Or look at non religious people: generally they end up treating some other important interest of their life like a religion. Sorry, dear mister Math, you forgot some non calculable ingredient...

ereldon 19y ago
Your point isn't addressing the fact that this guy is right more than everyone else, most of the time. Also, what's with the "women" comment?
- nostrademons 19y ago
  OTOH, it's a given that in any group of fortune-tellers, someone will be right more than everyone else. Unless there are other rational-choice theorists with similar track records, this doesn't tell us much about the validity of rational-choice theory itself. One of the things that made Warren Buffett's "The Superinvestors of Graham & Doddsville" so credible is that he listed a whole host of investors who all used the same strategy yet invested in different companies, and they all ended up beating the market by a large amount. It's not enough to look at what the leading practitioner in a field does, because he may be leading by luck. It's also not enough to look at a group of leading practitioners who all take the same actions, because luck might favor those actions and leave them all well-off. But if a group of leading practitioners all follow the same principles yet take different actions, and they all do well, there's probably something to those principles. Same reason why you should never just trust Paul Graham - he could've gotten lucky with Viaweb and just been in the right place at the right time. However, when he articulates the same principles as Marc Andreesen and Paul Buchheit and Caterina Fake, all of whom have gotten rich under different circumstances in different time periods, there might be something to them.
  - davidw 19y ago
    And, while it's harder to find, you should look for negative evidence as well. People who articulated and stuck to the same principles, and failed.

by lst 19y ago

ereldon 19y ago

Your point isn't addressing the fact that this guy is right more than everyone else, most of the time. Also, what's with the "women" comment?

nostrademons 19y ago
OTOH, it's a given that in any group of fortune-tellers, someone will be right more than everyone else. Unless there are other rational-choice theorists with similar track records, this doesn't tell us much about the validity of rational-choice theory itself. One of the things that made Warren Buffett's "The Superinvestors of Graham & Doddsville" so credible is that he listed a whole host of investors who all used the same strategy yet invested in different companies, and they all ended up beating the market by a large amount. It's not enough to look at what the leading practitioner in a field does, because he may be leading by luck. It's also not enough to look at a group of leading practitioners who all take the same actions, because luck might favor those actions and leave them all well-off. But if a group of leading practitioners all follow the same principles yet take different actions, and they all do well, there's probably something to those principles. Same reason why you should never just trust Paul Graham - he could've gotten lucky with Viaweb and just been in the right place at the right time. However, when he articulates the same principles as Marc Andreesen and Paul Buchheit and Caterina Fake, all of whom have gotten rich under different circumstances in different time periods, there might be something to them.
- davidw 19y ago
  And, while it's harder to find, you should look for negative evidence as well. People who articulated and stuck to the same principles, and failed.