13 ms·

Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

177 points by xvirk 10y ago

miseg 10y ago
You can see that he enjoys his writing, and I will enjoy reading this book.
JulianRaphael 10y ago
I look forward to reading this book. It would be interesting to have an investigation of the two different kinds of "skin in the game" in this book. There is a positive spin of the expression, e.g. the entrepreneur, who has skin in the game of his company via his shares and resources. This scenario (ideally) results in eustress. However, there is also a negative spin of the expression, e.g. an employee, who has skin in the game by being afraid of losing his job. Usually, this leads to distress over the long term. Hence, if I want to employ someone I face a dilemma: the employee should have skin in the game, but it shouldn't create distress. There's a huge set of options you can go with as the employer, but I wonder if there is an optimal solution.
- deepnet 10y ago
  Misalignment of incentives with desired outcomes is often overlooked as a cause of social ills. In general people do what gets them pay and promotion. Bonuses and shares align owners and employees interests. In Shaw's introduction to Pygmalion he points out we pay our doctors when we are ill; contrasting this to paying only when well, which Shaw suggests more clearly aligns preventative medicine with doctor's pay. Or the classic budget underspend resulting in less funding next year, incentivising innefficiency. 'Juking the Stats' is the epitomy. A useful metric, like pupils passing tests when used to allocate budgets becomes the sole object of teaching. Rather than education, the school teaches the test and worse those who are educators are ground down - as Simon's Pryzbylewski finds in The Wire.
  - JulianRaphael 10y ago
    I agree, although bonuses and shares can also backfire (esp. bonuses). There seems to be a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic factors that work well. Do you think there is an optimal solution to make an employee have skin in the game, but in a positive way?
mayukh 10y ago
For somebody who wrote 'Fooled by ..' one of my favorite books of all time, he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from self-doubt when it comes to stating his personal hypotheses. I can look past his condescending tone (especially towards the wealthy and 'pseudo' intellectuals), but his certitude in his own ideas -- especially after pressing home the point that we are surrounded by randomness -- tarnishes his punditry in my view.
- VodkaHaze 10y ago
  None of his theories are scientific. They're nice mental models to keep of the world, but they certainly don't justify his level of arrogance, especially not towards others who actually follow the scientific process to postulate theories
  - anton1989 10y ago
    You don't seem to know what scientific means, do you?
    - VodkaHaze 10y ago
      Are his theories formulated in a rigidly defined and testable manner, and empirically tested? No, they're "rules of thumb". Rules of thumbs can be great to make complex decisions (like in trading, as he does), but coming up with a few rules of thumb and doing well at your job does not warrant his level of confidence in his intellect.
      - ricksplat 10y ago
        Aren't rules of thumb in his case the outcome of inductive reasoning based on many observations? Sounds pretty empirical to me. It is a fundamental strength of science that such formulations accept falsifiability - so the fact that his hypotheses/theories/laws don't hold in all cases just means they need to be refined for those cases. It also common scientific practice to accept hypotheses within bounds of probability.
xfax 10y ago
Am I the only one who doesn't enjoy Taleb's writing style? I find that he tends to use overly complex vocabulary to explain very simple ideas.
- anotherhacker 10y ago
  I imagine he's having fun with this over-the-top prose. That's how I read his work.
- m52go 10y ago
  He's not the best writer. One reads his books for their ideas and wacky anecdotes, not the beauty of the writing style.
- brbrodude 10y ago
  I don't think it's complex vocabulary at all, to me it reads like plain talking(or thinking) and I think it's refreshing... On the themes he talks about, if it were talked about in a strict logical-technical manner it would be really, really boring.
- s_kilk 10y ago
  When I tried to read Antifragile his style seemed rambling and incoherent, darting back and forth between concepts and obtuse metaphors, like a tirade from the coked-up conspiracy nut at every party. I may need to give it another shot.
  - coolsunglasses 10y ago
    >like a tirade from the coked-up conspiracy nut at every party. I take it you've seen his Twitter then?
  - Torgo 10y ago
    I don't know how to describe it, but his style is...vintage. More like when I read old books. I'm particularly suited for this writing style and I interpret it fine. People frequently make the same complaints about the way I speak in person when discussing things. This is in no way a claim that I am as smart as Taleb.
jkldotio 10y ago
Here are two Facebook posts from Taleb related to the topic and a ~3 minute video that has the main point. "The establishment composed of journos, BS-Vending talking heads with well-formulated verbs, bureaucrato-cronies, lobbyists-in training, New Yorker-reading semi-intellectuals, image-conscious empty suits, Washington rent-seekers and other "well thinking" members of the vocal elites are not getting the point about what is happening and the sterility of their arguments. People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment." - 7th March - https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153654273663375 https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153654273663375 "What we are seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking "clerks" and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think... and 5) who to vote for. With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30y of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, microeconomic papers wrong 40% of the time, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating only 1/5th of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers with a better track record than these policymaking goons. Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats wanting to run our lives aren't even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. I have shown that most of what Cass-Sunstein-Richard Thaler types call "rational" or "irrational" comes from misunderstanding of probability theory." - 9th March - https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153658794008375 https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153658794008375 "Nassim Taleb: Skin in the Game" - 2m48s - 22nd April - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4DI-BF28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4DI-BF28
- VodkaHaze 10y ago
  Seems like he's gone full ZeroHedge
  - ricksplat 10y ago
    Except this guy is a known and reputable expert in economics. He's worth listening to unless you fear he may be shorting his readership (joking).
sremani 10y ago
I thoroughly enjoyed his other book, "Anti-Fragile" and even more enjoy his twitter feed. He may be low on humility factor, but him calling out BS is refreshing, esp. the self-proclaimed vanguards of science whose work in science is filled with holes and/or is sparse. Read some of the preview chapters, posted here and twitter feed. Fits very well with his writing style and over all theme. I look forward to read this book.
- VodkaHaze 10y ago
  For someone calling out vanguards of science, he's light on science himself. He pulled all his "theories" out of his ass, with no empirical support or mathematical deduction. Fooled by randomness was nice and all, and Black Swan was OK (if you can read past his arrogance), but now he considers himself a "public intellectual", and treats himself as the class of a Nobel winner when he has no more credentials than any other random day trader
  - vas123 10y ago
    well then, tell us how you truly feel...
  - anton1989 10y ago
    Probability theory is the queen of science
- henrik_w 10y ago
  I agree on both points. I really enjoyed reading Antifragile, lots of good concepts and ideas! But his Twitter feed is pretty depressing to read - lots of attacking back and forth.
  - acqq 10y ago
    > his Twitter feed is pretty depressing to read Em, aren't they all, unless they are the kind of "the shit my dad says," that is, intentional jokes?
  - cholantesh 10y ago
Houshalter 10y ago
The chapter about minorities ruling majorities was really insightful. He mentioned how if even a small percent of people become anti GMO, then GMOs will die out. A scary thing to keep in mind with the whole "label it" debate that was on here a few days ago.
- golergka 10y ago
  And a good way to fight that is to form a stubborn minority that only eats GMO food.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    that won't work in the EU which have have a much more sceptic view on these things. Their principle is the direct opposite of the US. If there is just the slightest risk that something is dangerous they forbid it. In the US they only forbid things if there is overwhelmingly evidence that points towards it being dangerous.
    - triangleman 10y ago
      Then how do you explain the ban on ephedra? Something like 2 people die and it's off the market. Meanwhile, Tylenol kills hundreds of people annually and it's still allowed. I was going to use Thalidomide as another counterexample, but I don't know how things are in Europe compared to the 60's.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        Anomalies
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      This discussion is about whether GMOs will naturally be phased out of the market because of a minority that refuses to eat them. Just like it's hard to find non kosher food, because there's a minority that won't eat it. If the government just outright mandates how food has to be produced, then no one has a choice, and of course that won't work. That's a different situation entirely. Anyway your generalization is overly broad. The US also is restrictive of new things. Especially in e.g. the medical world. See all the startups running into trouble with the FDA. But also things like drones were banned commercially until recently. Even GMOs did have to get FDA approval, so your statement is simply wrong. You can't just go out and make your own GMOs and sell them. I think it's just a general trend, that richer countries become more conservative, and more afraid of new things (and able to afford such policies.) Many technologies we take for granted would never be legally viable if they were invented today. Early automakers would have been sued out of existence for all the traffic accidents they caused. Or, speaking of GMOs, traditional crop breeding literally involves letting the crops randomly mutate in unknown ways (sometimes artificially through irradiation!) No way that would have been approved by modern regulators.
scott_s 10y ago
From http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf: "Which explains why it is so hard to find peanuts on airplanes" I was just on a flight where peanuts was one of the snack options. (I chose pretzels.)
paulpauper 10y ago
Taleb has made a career out of distorting and misconstruing the opinions of experts and professionals, whether it's about statistics, option trading, or risk management. He has few is only unique insights. His trading strategies that he allegedly used to make a fortune no longer work.
EGreg 10y ago
The solution to the employee slavery problem is simple: try a part time stint in an industry you can afford to mess up in. For example, if you can get a job as a non-proprietary trader you get a huge positive expected value. You make $$ - you get a huge windfall. Mess up? You get fired and collect only a small salary. You should make a pact with a couple friends to share he windfalls, and then each of you makes a guaranteed win.
- cylinder 10y ago
  That's interesting. Four different trading philosophies, four traders. They're aware of their fallibility. They contract and pour their earnings into an escrow account every pay period. They each receive a basic stipend. At the terminus of the agreement (e.g., 2 years), all earnings are distributed evenly.
rodionos 10y ago
Couldn't finish Black Swan, the same idea, regardless its merits, is discussed on 300 pages over and over again. Highly repetitive, the tone is generally condescending. I didn't like his stories about giving taxi drivers 100 dollar bills and observing their behavior.
chad_strategic 10y ago
I look forward to reading his book. His writing style is good but not great. I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc... From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS. We need more people to call others out on their BS. (US elections, MSM, cnbc, Mosanto, wall street...) Anybody that open comes out and says Saudi Arabia is a barbaric / terrorist state, (which the US Gov, seems to over look for years) questions the Federal Reserve, teaches at community college. Constantly, open sources his books and math. Probably isn't part of the establishment and hence might be driving peoples dislike. Of course most people on Wall St. don't like him because they don't understand his theories or his thoughts. He has great twitter feed. (He retweeted me once!)
- pitt1980 10y ago
  "I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc... From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS." ---------------- I'm not going to refrain from passing judgment here as to whether the people he 'calls out' deserve to get 'called out' or not but when you 'call people out', if other people don't agree with your fact pattern, it reads like 'arrogance' I would categorize his style as pretty 'on the nose', how that reads from there is a function of how much you agree with the fact pattern as he's laid it out ---------------- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20nose http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20no... http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248474/what-does-too-on-the-nose-mean http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248474/what-does-...
- api_or_ipa 10y ago
  his facebook page is not to be missed either. One of the main reasons why I still occasionally check facebook.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  The accusation of arrogance is especially ironic coming from the HN crowd, who assume themselves being especially qualified to comment on fields they are not experts on (statistics and economics in particular, but many others as well)
pitt1980 10y ago
http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf this chapter interesting contrasts with this blog post http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/01/setting-the-default/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/01/setting-the-default/ ------------- a better writer than me could shortly synthesis what's interesting about the two the blog post is sort of a defense of cultural warriorism the chapter seems to expand on it

177 points by xvirk 10y ago

miseg 10y ago

You can see that he enjoys his writing, and I will enjoy reading this book.

I look forward to reading this book. It would be interesting to have an investigation of the two different kinds of "skin in the game" in this book. There is a positive spin of the expression, e.g. the entrepreneur, who has skin in the game of his company via his shares and resources. This scenario (ideally) results in eustress. However, there is also a negative spin of the expression, e.g. an employee, who has skin in the game by being afraid of losing his job. Usually, this leads to distress over the long term. Hence, if I want to employ someone I face a dilemma: the employee should have skin in the game, but it shouldn't create distress. There's a huge set of options you can go with as the employer, but I wonder if there is an optimal solution.

deepnet 10y ago
Misalignment of incentives with desired outcomes is often overlooked as a cause of social ills. In general people do what gets them pay and promotion. Bonuses and shares align owners and employees interests. In Shaw's introduction to Pygmalion he points out we pay our doctors when we are ill; contrasting this to paying only when well, which Shaw suggests more clearly aligns preventative medicine with doctor's pay. Or the classic budget underspend resulting in less funding next year, incentivising innefficiency. 'Juking the Stats' is the epitomy. A useful metric, like pupils passing tests when used to allocate budgets becomes the sole object of teaching. Rather than education, the school teaches the test and worse those who are educators are ground down - as Simon's Pryzbylewski finds in The Wire.
- JulianRaphael 10y ago
  I agree, although bonuses and shares can also backfire (esp. bonuses). There seems to be a mix of extrinsic and intrinsic factors that work well. Do you think there is an optimal solution to make an employee have skin in the game, but in a positive way?

mayukh 10y ago

For somebody who wrote 'Fooled by ..' one of my favorite books of all time, he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from self-doubt when it comes to stating his personal hypotheses. I can look past his condescending tone (especially towards the wealthy and 'pseudo' intellectuals), but his certitude in his own ideas -- especially after pressing home the point that we are surrounded by randomness -- tarnishes his punditry in my view.

VodkaHaze 10y ago
None of his theories are scientific. They're nice mental models to keep of the world, but they certainly don't justify his level of arrogance, especially not towards others who actually follow the scientific process to postulate theories
- anton1989 10y ago
  You don't seem to know what scientific means, do you?
  - VodkaHaze 10y ago
    Are his theories formulated in a rigidly defined and testable manner, and empirically tested? No, they're "rules of thumb". Rules of thumbs can be great to make complex decisions (like in trading, as he does), but coming up with a few rules of thumb and doing well at your job does not warrant his level of confidence in his intellect.
    - ricksplat 10y ago
      Aren't rules of thumb in his case the outcome of inductive reasoning based on many observations? Sounds pretty empirical to me. It is a fundamental strength of science that such formulations accept falsifiability - so the fact that his hypotheses/theories/laws don't hold in all cases just means they need to be refined for those cases. It also common scientific practice to accept hypotheses within bounds of probability.

xfax 10y ago

Am I the only one who doesn't enjoy Taleb's writing style? I find that he tends to use overly complex vocabulary to explain very simple ideas.

anotherhacker 10y ago
I imagine he's having fun with this over-the-top prose. That's how I read his work.
m52go 10y ago
He's not the best writer. One reads his books for their ideas and wacky anecdotes, not the beauty of the writing style.
brbrodude 10y ago
I don't think it's complex vocabulary at all, to me it reads like plain talking(or thinking) and I think it's refreshing... On the themes he talks about, if it were talked about in a strict logical-technical manner it would be really, really boring.
s_kilk 10y ago
When I tried to read Antifragile his style seemed rambling and incoherent, darting back and forth between concepts and obtuse metaphors, like a tirade from the coked-up conspiracy nut at every party. I may need to give it another shot.
- coolsunglasses 10y ago
  >like a tirade from the coked-up conspiracy nut at every party. I take it you've seen his Twitter then?
- Torgo 10y ago
  I don't know how to describe it, but his style is...vintage. More like when I read old books. I'm particularly suited for this writing style and I interpret it fine. People frequently make the same complaints about the way I speak in person when discussing things. This is in no way a claim that I am as smart as Taleb.

jkldotio 10y ago

Here are two Facebook posts from Taleb related to the topic and a ~3 minute video that has the main point. "The establishment composed of journos, BS-Vending talking heads with well-formulated verbs, bureaucrato-cronies, lobbyists-in training, New Yorker-reading semi-intellectuals, image-conscious empty suits, Washington rent-seekers and other "well thinking" members of the vocal elites are not getting the point about what is happening and the sterility of their arguments. People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment." - 7th March - https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153654273663375 https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153654273663375 "What we are seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking "clerks" and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think... and 5) who to vote for. With psychology papers replicating less than 40%, dietary advice reversing after 30y of fatphobia, macroeconomic analysis working worse than astrology, microeconomic papers wrong 40% of the time, the appointment of Bernanke who was less than clueless of the risks, and pharmaceutical trials replicating only 1/5th of the time, people are perfectly entitled to rely on their own ancestral instinct and listen to their grandmothers with a better track record than these policymaking goons. Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats wanting to run our lives aren't even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. I have shown that most of what Cass-Sunstein-Richard Thaler types call "rational" or "irrational" comes from misunderstanding of probability theory." - 9th March - https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153658794008375 https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/10153658794008375 "Nassim Taleb: Skin in the Game" - 2m48s - 22nd April - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4DI-BF28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc4DI-BF28

VodkaHaze 10y ago
Seems like he's gone full ZeroHedge
- ricksplat 10y ago
  Except this guy is a known and reputable expert in economics. He's worth listening to unless you fear he may be shorting his readership (joking).

sremani 10y ago

I thoroughly enjoyed his other book, "Anti-Fragile" and even more enjoy his twitter feed. He may be low on humility factor, but him calling out BS is refreshing, esp. the self-proclaimed vanguards of science whose work in science is filled with holes and/or is sparse. Read some of the preview chapters, posted here and twitter feed. Fits very well with his writing style and over all theme. I look forward to read this book.

VodkaHaze 10y ago
For someone calling out vanguards of science, he's light on science himself. He pulled all his "theories" out of his ass, with no empirical support or mathematical deduction. Fooled by randomness was nice and all, and Black Swan was OK (if you can read past his arrogance), but now he considers himself a "public intellectual", and treats himself as the class of a Nobel winner when he has no more credentials than any other random day trader
- vas123 10y ago
  well then, tell us how you truly feel...
- anton1989 10y ago
  Probability theory is the queen of science
henrik_w 10y ago
I agree on both points. I really enjoyed reading Antifragile, lots of good concepts and ideas! But his Twitter feed is pretty depressing to read - lots of attacking back and forth.
- acqq 10y ago
  > his Twitter feed is pretty depressing to read Em, aren't they all, unless they are the kind of "the shit my dad says," that is, intentional jokes?
- cholantesh 10y ago

Houshalter 10y ago

The chapter about minorities ruling majorities was really insightful. He mentioned how if even a small percent of people become anti GMO, then GMOs will die out. A scary thing to keep in mind with the whole "label it" debate that was on here a few days ago.

golergka 10y ago
And a good way to fight that is to form a stubborn minority that only eats GMO food.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  that won't work in the EU which have have a much more sceptic view on these things. Their principle is the direct opposite of the US. If there is just the slightest risk that something is dangerous they forbid it. In the US they only forbid things if there is overwhelmingly evidence that points towards it being dangerous.
  - triangleman 10y ago
    Then how do you explain the ban on ephedra? Something like 2 people die and it's off the market. Meanwhile, Tylenol kills hundreds of people annually and it's still allowed. I was going to use Thalidomide as another counterexample, but I don't know how things are in Europe compared to the 60's.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Anomalies
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    This discussion is about whether GMOs will naturally be phased out of the market because of a minority that refuses to eat them. Just like it's hard to find non kosher food, because there's a minority that won't eat it. If the government just outright mandates how food has to be produced, then no one has a choice, and of course that won't work. That's a different situation entirely. Anyway your generalization is overly broad. The US also is restrictive of new things. Especially in e.g. the medical world. See all the startups running into trouble with the FDA. But also things like drones were banned commercially until recently. Even GMOs did have to get FDA approval, so your statement is simply wrong. You can't just go out and make your own GMOs and sell them. I think it's just a general trend, that richer countries become more conservative, and more afraid of new things (and able to afford such policies.) Many technologies we take for granted would never be legally viable if they were invented today. Early automakers would have been sued out of existence for all the traffic accidents they caused. Or, speaking of GMOs, traditional crop breeding literally involves letting the crops randomly mutate in unknown ways (sometimes artificially through irradiation!) No way that would have been approved by modern regulators.

scott_s 10y ago

From http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf: "Which explains why it is so hard to find peanuts on airplanes" I was just on a flight where peanuts was one of the snack options. (I chose pretzels.)

paulpauper 10y ago

Taleb has made a career out of distorting and misconstruing the opinions of experts and professionals, whether it's about statistics, option trading, or risk management. He has few is only unique insights. His trading strategies that he allegedly used to make a fortune no longer work.

EGreg 10y ago

The solution to the employee slavery problem is simple: try a part time stint in an industry you can afford to mess up in. For example, if you can get a job as a non-proprietary trader you get a huge positive expected value. You make $$ - you get a huge windfall. Mess up? You get fired and collect only a small salary. You should make a pact with a couple friends to share he windfalls, and then each of you makes a guaranteed win.

cylinder 10y ago
That's interesting. Four different trading philosophies, four traders. They're aware of their fallibility. They contract and pour their earnings into an escrow account every pay period. They each receive a basic stipend. At the terminus of the agreement (e.g., 2 years), all earnings are distributed evenly.

rodionos 10y ago

Couldn't finish Black Swan, the same idea, regardless its merits, is discussed on 300 pages over and over again. Highly repetitive, the tone is generally condescending. I didn't like his stories about giving taxi drivers 100 dollar bills and observing their behavior.

chad_strategic 10y ago

I look forward to reading his book. His writing style is good but not great. I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc... From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS. We need more people to call others out on their BS. (US elections, MSM, cnbc, Mosanto, wall street...) Anybody that open comes out and says Saudi Arabia is a barbaric / terrorist state, (which the US Gov, seems to over look for years) questions the Federal Reserve, teaches at community college. Constantly, open sources his books and math. Probably isn't part of the establishment and hence might be driving peoples dislike. Of course most people on Wall St. don't like him because they don't understand his theories or his thoughts. He has great twitter feed. (He retweeted me once!)

pitt1980 10y ago
"I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc... From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS." ---------------- I'm not going to refrain from passing judgment here as to whether the people he 'calls out' deserve to get 'called out' or not but when you 'call people out', if other people don't agree with your fact pattern, it reads like 'arrogance' I would categorize his style as pretty 'on the nose', how that reads from there is a function of how much you agree with the fact pattern as he's laid it out ---------------- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20nose http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=on%20the%20no... http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248474/what-does-too-on-the-nose-mean http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/248474/what-does-...
api_or_ipa 10y ago
his facebook page is not to be missed either. One of the main reasons why I still occasionally check facebook.
antisthenes 10y ago
The accusation of arrogance is especially ironic coming from the HN crowd, who assume themselves being especially qualified to comment on fields they are not experts on (statistics and economics in particular, but many others as well)

pitt1980 10y ago

http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf this chapter interesting contrasts with this blog post http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/01/setting-the-default/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/01/setting-the-default/ ------------- a better writer than me could shortly synthesis what's interesting about the two the blog post is sort of a defense of cultural warriorism the chapter seems to expand on it