Inquiring Minds Are Flukes Actually the Norm?
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Apr 15, 2024 Global politics luminary Brian Klaas discusses the omnipresence of chance in personal lives, scientific research, and politics. He challenges the illusion of control fostered by historical data, prompting a reevaluation of randomness in AI, scientific methodologies, and political science.
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Randomness Undermines Neat Historical Narratives
- Brian Klaas argues historians and fieldwork show tiny arbitrary factors often determine outcomes that datasets smooth over.
- He challenges the neat causal narratives we prefer and calls for recognizing randomness as central to social change.
Evolution Makes Us Allergic To Randomness
- Human brains evolved to over-detect patterns because false positives were safer than misses for survival.
- Klaas says modern systems reward optimization but should instead prioritize resilience against unpredictable shocks.
Prioritize Resilience Over Optimization
- Plan for resilience rather than squeezing out every inefficiency from systems and lives.
- Preserve slack so systems and individuals can absorb rare, large shocks instead of optimizing them away.