IYIs, Uninformative Medical Diagnoses, and Interventionism

I recently completed Nassim Taleb’s latest book, Skin In The Game, and its implications for medical providers are constructive, particularly the relationship it explores between interventionism and “intellectuals yet idiots” (IYIs). Skin In The Game analyzes the interplay between risk asymmetry, ethical boundaries, theorizing, and tinkering. When faced with a problem, even an ambiguous one, there is usually a compulsion to do something. Intervening seemingly assures us that we are taking measures to rectify the matter. The issue with intervening to “fix” a poorly understood problem is that the “solution” itself can be costly and difficult to quantify even well after the damage is done.

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