A quick overview of #ergodicity, using plain language and down-to-earth examples.
A talk on Saturday the 13th of March.
Attendance is free but registration is mandatory: gum.co/ergodicitytalk
The idea is to make the concept as accessible at possible, so I won’t use any maths beyond 3rd grade, and will focus on examples not from investing but from everyone’s life.
Attendance is FREE even though it’s a Gumroad link.
It’s a Gumroad link because I offer a bundle “talk + book”, but if you want to just hear me the talk, you can register for free. I’m experimenting to see if this format is sustainable.
I know that one would like to know what ergodicity is before signing up. But if I could have explained ergodicity in a few simple paragraphs, I'd have, instead of having written a book / scheduled a talk.
That said, here’s an attempt to give some context:
2/ First of all, this is a Roam Book (rBook). It is a new format that integrates with your notes, allows for non-linear exploration of its contents, and more. You can read more about it on roam-books.com
TROLLEY PROBLEMS We spend too much time on deciding which way to pull the lever, and not nearly enough time on slowing trolleys down and asking ourselves "why are there people bound to the tracks"?
Thread with examples, 1/N
2/ One example: should Trump be banned? Was the election stolen?
These are lever questions.
The trolley question is: how come fraud and/or "changing the rules at the last minute" are plausible?
3/ It's important to focus on trolley questions, because pulling a lever doesn't stop the trolley – it will keep being a problem in the future.
I’ve personally consulted for a pharma company on biological contamination due to behavioral mistakes (though at lower security levels than the labs involved here) and, based on my experience, I find very plausible that one day a rushed or tired employee makes a misstep.
Of course, I would like to believe that after SARS, protocols for way stronger.
But I also believe that virological labs will have leaks again, eventually. Not if, but when.
Let me understand. It took hundreds of thousands of years to understand that cows can contribute to greenhouse gases, but a few years of small-scale development of lab-grown meat are enough to say it doesn’t have negative side-effects?
Also: the side-effects of something (not just the product, but the infrastructure needed to produce it, it’s byproducts etc) are different whether it’s “lab-studied” and “industrialized. Small scale and large scale can’t be equated.
TWO REASONS PEOPLE REFUSE “COIN FLIPS” BETS
and the importance of considering what’s “out of scope”
Thread, 1/N
2/ A classic “surprising phenomenon” is that people offered a bet such as “I flip a coin; if heads, you win $1000, if tails, you lose $950” tend to refuse playing.
The surprise comes from the fact that, in theory, the bet has positive expected outcome: $25.
(1000*50%-950*50%)
3/ However, there are two explanations for which it’s rational to refuse such a bet.