Resident Moron™ October 27, 2018 12:03 PM
The thing about timing is not just that you cannot know it. Why you cannot know it is because there's an unpredictability built in to human nature, and you cannot see or measure all the stressors that give rise to what appears at the time to be "spontaneous" combustion.
As Taleb observes in "Fooled By Randomness" there is a reason why the ancient saying about the straw that breaks the camel's back is ancient. Things tend to continue largely as they have, and tomorrow tends to be much like today with very minor alterations.
But that's also why history is important; it shows us that long slow Sisyphean efforts to push the stone of civilisation up the hill are regularly followed by sharp reversals as it plummets rapidly back into the pit of barbarism.
Predicting those sudden reversals is easy - we all know that one is coming and we are currently overdue - but predicting the day it happens is impossible.
Don't bother even trying to predict the day.
Just be ready.
The thing about timing is not just that you cannot know it. Why you cannot know it is because there's an unpredictability built in to human nature, and you cannot see or measure all the stressors that give rise to what appears at the time to be "spontaneous" combustion.
As Taleb observes in "Fooled By Randomness" there is a reason why the ancient saying about the straw that breaks the camel's back is ancient. Things tend to continue largely as they have, and tomorrow tends to be much like today with very minor alterations.
But that's also why history is important; it shows us that long slow Sisyphean efforts to push the stone of civilisation up the hill are regularly followed by sharp reversals as it plummets rapidly back into the pit of barbarism.
Predicting those sudden reversals is easy - we all know that one is coming and we are currently overdue - but predicting the day it happens is impossible.
Don't bother even trying to predict the day.
Just be ready.