Nassim Taleb: Here's What People Don't Understand About Ebola
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Multiplication - that's what people don't understand about Ebola, according to Nassim Taleb, the author of "Fooled by Randomness" and "The Black Swan."
More specifically, Taleb explained to Business Insider that many people talking about the disease don't "have a grasp of the severity of the multiplicative process."
The argument that the United States should be more worried about a disease like cancer, which has stable rates of infection, than Ebola does currently is a logic that Taleb calls "the empiricism of the idiots."
The basic idea is that the growth rate of Ebola infection is nonlinear, so the number of people catching it doubles every 20 days. Because of this, you have to act quickly at the source of infections, he says. "The closer you are to the source the more effective you are at slowing it down... it is much more rational to prevent it now than later."
The problem Taleb sees is that if there is not more urgent action in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea - to the point of restricting travel and other measures that may now seem like an overreaction - then there will be consequences here. "If you have to overreact about something, this is the place to overreact," he said.
If Ebola doesn't get contained at the source now, he says, there is a risk that people start perceiving it as out of control, and that could have major economic consequences in the US (shut down airports, people too afraid to go out of their house to buy anything, etc.).
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- A centenarian who starts her day with gentle exercise and loves walks shares 5 longevity tips, including staying single
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- "To sit and talk in the box...!" Kohli's message to critics as RCB wrecks GT in IPL Match 45
- 7 Nutritious and flavourful tiffin ideas to pack for school
- India's e-commerce market set to skyrocket as the country's digital economy surges to USD 1 Trillion by 2030
- Top 5 places to visit near Rishikesh
- Indian economy remains in bright spot: Ministry of Finance