We want to get 80%-85% of predictions right, not 100%. Or else we calibrated our estimates in the wrong way.
Nate SilverRead
We're not that much smarter than we used to be, even though we have much more information - and that means the real skill now is learning how to pick out the useful information from all this noise.
Interpretation
Despite having access to more information, our ability to discern useful knowledge has become the essential skill.
This quote by Nate Silver emphasizes that the increase in available information does not directly correlate with intelligence. Instead, the real challenge in the modern world is to sift through the overwhelming amount of data and identify what is genuinely valuable and applicable. In a society flooded with information, critical thinking and discernment are more crucial than ever.
In practice
In a presentation about effective data analysis.
We want to get 80%-85% of predictions right, not 100%. Or else we calibrated our estimates in the wrong way.
A lot of news is just entertainment masquerading as news.
Racism is predictable. It's predicted by interaction or lack thereof with people unlike you, people of other races.
One of the pervasive risks that we face in the information age, as I wrote in the introduction, is that even if the amount of knowledge in the world is increasing, the gap between what we know and what we think we know may be widening.
A lot of journalism wants to have what they call objectivity without them having a commitment to pursuing the truth, but that doesn't work. Objectivity requires belief in and a commitment toward pursuing the truth - having an object outside of our personal point of view.
The quest for certainty in forecasting outcomes can be the enemy of progress.
I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
What's needed in this case is conscious and serious practice in hearing, and using, and being used by, other people's voices.
I think [Transcendental Meditation] is what people need. They don't need high minded talk, they need results.
The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler.
When you have those two languages - an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get almost a psychotic sense of humanity that permeates nearly everything. It can help you understand, and it can discourage you, because you see how little can be done.
Wait for the idea. It may not come at first, but you must be patient, never doubting, waiting in faith. It will come.
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