Curiosidade do dia

Da próxima vez que ler os textos dos mesmos jornalistas que bajulavam Ricardo Salgado e que agora louvam os resultados do governo da geringonça lembre-se disto:

"A good outcome means we made the right decisions, right? Not so quick. If we were wise we would not judge performance in any field by results (outcome bias).
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Taleb argues that we should judge people by the costs of the alternative, that is if history played out in another way. These “substitute courses of events are called alternative histories.”
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One can illustrate the strange concept of alternative histories as follows. Imagine an eccentric (and bored) tycoon offering you $ 10 million to play Russian roulette, i.e., to put a revolver containing one bullet in the six available chambers to your head and pull the trigger. Each realization would count as one history, for a total of six possible histories of equal probabilities. Five out of these six histories would lead to enrichment; one would lead to a statistic, that is, an obituary with an embarrassing (but certainly original) cause of death. The problem is that only one of the histories is observed in reality; and the winner of $ 10 million would elicit the admiration and praise of some fatuous journalist (the very same ones who unconditionally admire the Forbes 500 billionaires).
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Consider the possibility that the Russian roulette winner would be used as a role model by his family, friends, and neighbors.
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While the remaining five histories are not observable, the wise and thoughtful person could easily make a guess as to their attributes. It requires some thoughtfulness and personal courage. In addition, in time, if the roulette-betting fool keeps playing the game, the bad histories will tend to catch up with him."

Cuidado com as políticas fragilistas.

Trechos retirados de "Nassim Taleb on the Notion of Alternative Histories"