25 Rules of Thumb for Acting Under Uncertainty
Posted on March 25th, 2015
1. Beware of obvious rewards and excessive competition—they increase exposure to chance events and reduce the role of skill in acquiring rewards
2. Watch for hidden correlations
3. Be suspicious of stability or the appearance of stability—there are higher dimensions of risk lurking in the shadows
4. Remember that volatility begets volatility
5. Invest in preparation—insure against the worst-case-scenario
6. Take a large number of risks where the downside is clipped and well-understood (the risk of embarrassment is a good example of such a risk)
7. Focus on the knowledge as well as the confidence on the knowledge—calculate error rates whenever possible
8. Don’t play in uninsurable environments
9. Diversify—massively
10. Be wary of conventional statistics ("R squared," correlation) in domains where there is evidence for the existence of power-law behavior
11. Remember that uncertainty stems from unknowledge—chaos theory is not the same thing
12. In the short to medium term, the least fit can survive and even excel
13. Beware of "because" and inferring causation—especially if the downside of being wrong is high
14. The obvious can be overpriced
15. The past is not the future
16. Distinguish between domains with and without experts—know "how" vs. know "what"
17. There are always things that can be done even with no knowledge—acting under true uncertainty need not lead to decision paralysis
18. Disconfirmation is more powerful than confirmation—the problem of induction
19. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
20. Strive to balance searching and acting
21. Look for the presence of survivorship and availability bias
22. Question your premises
23. Impact matters—distinguish between frequency and impact
24. Always remember—rare events are unpricable
25. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best
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I believe that these 25 Rules of Thumb Created were created by Navanit Akeri