
Taleb on Black Swans, Fragility, and Mistakes - pelle
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/05/taleb_on_black_1.html
======
davemabe
My favorite quote on Nassim Taleb's writings:

 _Taleb’s writings are filled with certainty, anger, and immodesty, having the
Godelian impossibility of someone shouting 'I am the most humble!'_

Spot on. From [http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-
blac...](http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-black-
swan.html).

~~~
hassy
From the linked article:

 _Taleb’s style is to severely criticize experts and authorities--lots of
'morons', 'idiots', and 'fools' out there--while implying that both he and his
reader or listener are exempt from their many biases._

A _third_ of Fooled By Randomness (published before Black Swan) is about
accepting that you are biased, there's nothing you can do about it, your
rationality is limited. And then trying to deal with it - accepting your
biases in the small and spending your precious rational thinking on the big
stuff (e.g. where you invest your money).

I only skimmed the rest of that article, but that was enough to spot at least
two other sentences which show that the author didn't really spend time trying
to understand Taleb's ideas and is being ticked off by Taleb's irreverence and
love of opinionated aphorisms.

~~~
hjkl
I agree: so much of the criticism regarding Taleb's books seems to be that
he's arrogant. However, I don't understand how it's arrogant to say that
people are bad at predicting the future, which I think is his main point.

~~~
akshaybhat
Having spent last two year working prediction of properties of drugs from
their structure (Machine Learning), Taleb's book was the real eye opener.

It made total sense. However the hoi polloi is in search of a charismatic
Messiah who has answer to all questions. And when someone mocks their
expectation by presenting statistical evidence, the general argument is how
arrogant that person is.

The idea of something can be predicted by using mathematical formulas (F=MA)
is extremely attractive, however in Chaos filled practice one finds it more of
an exception rather than a rule. The worst part being our inability to choose
a proper null model.

------
neilk
Did I hear correctly? Taleb is betting on _hyperinflation_?

Talk about burying the lede.

------
ThomPete
The book is simply great. The arrogance people refér to is called skepticism
towards bs

