
I Hope for Goldman Sachs’ Bankruptcy: Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Skin in the Game - wslh
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2018/03/i-hope-goldman-sachs-bankruptcy-nassim-nicholas-taleb-skin-game
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mathperson
did nassim taleb really boast about deadlifting 400 lbs? That isn't very much
for a deadlift if you lift consistently...

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scottlocklin
It's quite respectable if you're almost in your 60s, which he is.

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audiometry
This is respectable:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9Rfo1vNDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9Rfo1vNDI)

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lz400
Taleb is a serious charlatan. I found somebody tweeting this the other day
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H11t5zBd3fU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H11t5zBd3fU)

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petermcneeley
I dont see how that video backs up the claim of charlatan. I see someone
saying that our science is limited and that survivorship (evolution) has an
intelligence to it.

I think to really make this claim you would need to focus on a falsifiable
statement(s) that he has made.

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lz400
How about his claims that the enlightenment screwed everything up and we were
better off with a religious approach? Contradicts all evidence. Post-
enlightenment reasoning and culture advanced civilization dramatically.

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petermcneeley
In the video he says we are unwiser. That we are arrogant in our application
of our limited scientific understanding. This type of statement by him is so
vague that it cant really be a claim that is provable one way or another.

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lz400
Saying that we are unwiser post-enlightenment than in the dark ages is pure
charlatanism in my opinion, however vague than statement is. The arrogance
argument is more arguable but in the context it makes it look like the only
thing we got out of the scientific revolution is arrogance, which is like
saying that the only thing we got from discovering penicilin is antibiotic
overuse.

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petermcneeley
This might be enough for you but im looking for much clearer statements that
can be demonstrated to be false. As an example of this I would point to my
article on steven pinker. [http://darkcephas.blogspot.ca/2018/01/on-group-
selection.htm...](http://darkcephas.blogspot.ca/2018/01/on-group-
selection.html)

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lz400
Charlatans don’t really do clear. Look at Deepak Chopra, it’s also going to be
difficult to do demonstrably false stuff. It’s mostly vague mumbo jumbo that’s
intuitively nonsense. Still, saying that we are unwiser now than before the
enlightenment is demonstrably false by a number of metrics, from medical
results to number of books published, literacy and many more.

