Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
Yeah, something like that.

As i understand it, Taleb is pointing out catastrophe as a possible outcome of GMO because we don't understand all the variables at play and can't predict any chaotic effects that might arise out of their interactions.

It's a bit of an argument about how knowing what we know now doesn't necessarily reflect the real world because of lolvariance. But with no evidence about variance it's arguably difficult to contend we should base our decisions on the unknown possiblities which are infinite and not measurable.

I think Taleb's contribution to maths is to show that our estimates of what variance is are not as informed as we thought they were, and we shouldn't as a default dismiss models that aren't evidence-based. That leads to a bit of a kerfluffle though where we can assume any model with no evidence 'just because', whereas any reasonable model depends on what's already been observed based on the Likelihood Principle whereby the past is a reasonable predictor of the future.
That's great. I really like having your insight into Taleb.