Nassim Taleb: Here's What People Don't Understand About Ebola [View all]

[Warren DeMontague]

Since so many right now are talking about "panic" and, particularly, how so many people apparently "just don't understand ebola", I thought this was relevant:


http://www.businessinsider.com/nassim-taleb-heres-what-people-dont-understand-about-ebola-2014-10#ixzz3GdSErRhN

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 US should be more worried about a disease like cancer — which has more stable rates of infection than Ebola does currently — is a logic that Taleb calls "the empiricism of the idiots."

The basic idea: The growth 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."

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"If you have to overreact about something, this is the place to overreact," he said.