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DUALISM_TRAP

                                             March - May 5, 2008
Is Taleb falling into
a dualism trap?
                                             BLACK_SWAN

  Mediocrestan vs   Extremistan
  "no scale"   vs   "scales"
  physical     vs   social or informational (which?)     EXTREME_TRIGGER
  intuitive    vs   cognitive
  narrated     vs   empirical
  instinctive  vs   learned



If you replace these dualisms
with Venn diagrams the immediate
question is "How tightly aligned
are they?"




If they're out of phase,
even a little, then
possibilities arise like         [ref]
using a sophisticated
"learned narrative"
to navigate "Extremistan".
                                   How far can you take this?

                                   Could you define a phase angle,
                                   where 90 degrees would be
                                   "orthogonal", i.e. unrelated.
                                   Imagine the superimposed venn
                                   diagrams of the left and right
                                   handed and that of the good and
                                   evil.

                                      We could have an interesting
                                      debate on the phase angle for
                                      left and right politics.





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