4 ms·

The Dictatorship of the Small Minority by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

39 points by randomname2 10y ago

PaulHoule 10y ago
I don't see the threat in Kosher, Halal, etc. As a non-Muslim in upstate NY I see Halal meat as a net positive influence. It enables a local alternative supply chain for meat: some restaurants around here sell really delicious meat, often things like lamb and goat you don't see every day. Also a lot of non-Muslim farmers can make a living because of this supply chain.
- kps 10y ago
  Sikhs can't eat Kosher, Halal, etc.
  - webwanderings 10y ago
    Anybody can pretty much eat anything. They don't; which is a different matter.
  - PaulHoule 10y ago
    They can go eat at McDonald's. I think about theology too and I see kosher/halal as giving respect to the animal like (1) indigenous hunters do, and (2) a bit like Christians saying grace. You might say Roman style animal sacrifice is barbaric and it is but offering something people will consume is not.
  - PaulHoule 10y ago
    They can go eat at McDonald's. I think about theology too and I see kosher/halal as giving respect to the animal like (1) indigenous hunters do, and (2) a bit like Christians saying grace. You might say Roman style animal sacrifice is barbaric and it is but offering something people will consume is not.
- harmegido 10y ago
  Are you just making a sidenote here? This article was using the Kosher/Halal example as just an example of a phenomena, not a thing to fear or praise.
- SFJulie 10y ago
  A > B means that A can make B to do something that B cannot make A do. By definition this kind of order relationship is a marker of «power» struggle. Let's take the example of the kosher/allahl for instance, in a term of organoleptic quality kosher/allahl is the same as normal food. So rigourously on the level that that matters the minority is not harming the majority, except that ritual are first increasing the costs of food, secondly being used to found some «religious mafia». Do you want your everyday food when you are in the majority of the atheists / not very praticant religious people found proselytism? Should the tolerant people be forced to found intolerance? Second example; the peanuts/gluten/allergy free food: it seems harmless, isn't it? Except that early exposure to allergens is strongly suspected (see amish) to help build resistance to allergies & asthma (see toys dolls). Thus, selling exclusively allergens free food diminishes the risks for a minority at the price of exposing the young majority to even more problems in the future. Having recently met too much healthy food delirant retarded for my own sanity, they often blame their allergies to «the lack of hygiene» (they often correlate with poverty), and imposes their food choices to the majority. This question of the power of any group (whatever their size is) is a classical of the social contract where the Nation is supposed to limit freedom in regard of the common interest. It is a protestant way of thinking.
mamurphy 10y ago
I didn't expect this article to be so long or to have such great examples. The idea that GMO providers should try to convince 100% of the population, not just the majority, was particularly insightful and unexpected. It makes sense, though: if, say 10%, of folks will ONLY eat Organic and the remaining, say 90%, will eat Organic or GMO with equal preference, it makes your supply chain much easier to supply ONLY Organic food while still accessing 100% of the market. If you supply both types, you have a more complex supply chain, and if you supply ONLY GMO, you give up on 10% of the market.
- rz2k 10y ago
  Am I being pedantic to think that is a weird way to label? Organic refers to the methods and compounds used to control pests, while GMO refers to the genetic heritage of the organisms being cultivated. They're cultivated because they have more desirable traits, but they're still carbon-based organisms. Anyway, I'm probably making his point for him, but Taleb's anti-expert bias can drive me up the wall.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    > Taleb's anti-expert bias can drive me up the wall. Indeed, that is why I couldn't make it past the second chapter of Antifragile. His insistence on citationless, just-so stories to explain everything (in his world everything has a snarky one-liner explanation) make his writing a huge turn-off to me. I'm surprised about his popularity in the HN crowd since I would expect engineers to insist on statements being backed up by evidence. However, this article contains some good insights. Although it was permeated with matter-of-fact insults to practically every group of people, the insults were less vicious than those of many of his other works.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I'm surprised about his popularity in the HN crowd Anti-(established)-expert bias and reducing complex problems and their solutions to clever (and often, though not always, snarky) one-liners are kind of bread-and-butter of the startup world.
sytelus 10y ago
I've to give it to Taleb to bring some rather fundamental and obvious in hindsight insights to explicit clarity. Although one must not confuse anecdotes with statistics, his writing style is gold. The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates.
sctb 10y ago
Recent discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dictatorship%20small%20minority&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=pastMonth&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dictatorship%20small%20minorit...
squozzer 10y ago
Taleb mentions the brilliance of Hannibal but fails to mention the stubborness of the Romans, who never offered terms, even after many defeats. In the end, Rome destroyed Carthage.
- Mickydtron 10y ago
  I actually am struggling to see the real relevance of the military examples there at the end. It seems to be there to show that stubbornness and/or courage results in winning (to rather grossly simplify). But it should be obvious that neither stubbornness or courage are enough for military victory, and it's not too hard to find examples where the opposite was what brought victory. In fact, we don't even need to leave the Punic wars. Hannibal's winning move at Cannae was in fact to have the center of his battle formation not be stubborn, and fall back, drawing the Romans into an encircling trap. Fabian's strategy was seen as cowardly, but as squozzer notes, Hannibal didn't destroy Rome, while Rome did eventually destroy Carthage.
Mickydtron 10y ago
The core insight here, while interesting, ended up being much more generic than I was expecting it to be after the initial examples. It seems to boil down to "There exist mechanisms by which a small group can either grow to dominate a larger group, or have their behavioral norms spread to outside of their group, or otherwise punch above their weight. These mechanisms involve a rule or circumstance that is asymmetric." It is an interesting principle, and useful to keep in mind, but I do not think it really supports all of the points he makes with it, or justify some of the language used. For example, I do not think that all drinks being Kosher, or a high prevalence of halal butcher shops, merit being described as "dictatorships". In the examples that would merit such strong language, such as the possibility of an anti-democratic religion dominating a democratic society and culture, I do not think that the Power of Asymmetry Principle leads where he tries to go. Specifically, he says that we need to be "more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities". However, if we examine the situation while keeping the power of asymmetry in mind, all we need to do is look for the asymmetry that would give this group its power, and take that away. In this case, the ability to use violence to enforce religious rules, specifically the death penalty for apostasy. Without the threat of violence, fundamentalist Islam would look much more like fundamentalist Christianity, trying (with various levels of success) to enforce its norms through political and interpersonal channels, but far from an unstoppable juggernaut.

39 points by randomname2 10y ago

I don't see the threat in Kosher, Halal, etc. As a non-Muslim in upstate NY I see Halal meat as a net positive influence. It enables a local alternative supply chain for meat: some restaurants around here sell really delicious meat, often things like lamb and goat you don't see every day. Also a lot of non-Muslim farmers can make a living because of this supply chain.

kps 10y ago
Sikhs can't eat Kosher, Halal, etc.
- webwanderings 10y ago
  Anybody can pretty much eat anything. They don't; which is a different matter.
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  They can go eat at McDonald's. I think about theology too and I see kosher/halal as giving respect to the animal like (1) indigenous hunters do, and (2) a bit like Christians saying grace. You might say Roman style animal sacrifice is barbaric and it is but offering something people will consume is not.
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  They can go eat at McDonald's. I think about theology too and I see kosher/halal as giving respect to the animal like (1) indigenous hunters do, and (2) a bit like Christians saying grace. You might say Roman style animal sacrifice is barbaric and it is but offering something people will consume is not.
harmegido 10y ago
Are you just making a sidenote here? This article was using the Kosher/Halal example as just an example of a phenomena, not a thing to fear or praise.
SFJulie 10y ago
A > B means that A can make B to do something that B cannot make A do. By definition this kind of order relationship is a marker of «power» struggle. Let's take the example of the kosher/allahl for instance, in a term of organoleptic quality kosher/allahl is the same as normal food. So rigourously on the level that that matters the minority is not harming the majority, except that ritual are first increasing the costs of food, secondly being used to found some «religious mafia». Do you want your everyday food when you are in the majority of the atheists / not very praticant religious people found proselytism? Should the tolerant people be forced to found intolerance? Second example; the peanuts/gluten/allergy free food: it seems harmless, isn't it? Except that early exposure to allergens is strongly suspected (see amish) to help build resistance to allergies & asthma (see toys dolls). Thus, selling exclusively allergens free food diminishes the risks for a minority at the price of exposing the young majority to even more problems in the future. Having recently met too much healthy food delirant retarded for my own sanity, they often blame their allergies to «the lack of hygiene» (they often correlate with poverty), and imposes their food choices to the majority. This question of the power of any group (whatever their size is) is a classical of the social contract where the Nation is supposed to limit freedom in regard of the common interest. It is a protestant way of thinking.

mamurphy 10y ago

I didn't expect this article to be so long or to have such great examples. The idea that GMO providers should try to convince 100% of the population, not just the majority, was particularly insightful and unexpected. It makes sense, though: if, say 10%, of folks will ONLY eat Organic and the remaining, say 90%, will eat Organic or GMO with equal preference, it makes your supply chain much easier to supply ONLY Organic food while still accessing 100% of the market. If you supply both types, you have a more complex supply chain, and if you supply ONLY GMO, you give up on 10% of the market.

rz2k 10y ago
Am I being pedantic to think that is a weird way to label? Organic refers to the methods and compounds used to control pests, while GMO refers to the genetic heritage of the organisms being cultivated. They're cultivated because they have more desirable traits, but they're still carbon-based organisms. Anyway, I'm probably making his point for him, but Taleb's anti-expert bias can drive me up the wall.
- linkregister 10y ago
  > Taleb's anti-expert bias can drive me up the wall. Indeed, that is why I couldn't make it past the second chapter of Antifragile. His insistence on citationless, just-so stories to explain everything (in his world everything has a snarky one-liner explanation) make his writing a huge turn-off to me. I'm surprised about his popularity in the HN crowd since I would expect engineers to insist on statements being backed up by evidence. However, this article contains some good insights. Although it was permeated with matter-of-fact insults to practically every group of people, the insults were less vicious than those of many of his other works.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I'm surprised about his popularity in the HN crowd Anti-(established)-expert bias and reducing complex problems and their solutions to clever (and often, though not always, snarky) one-liners are kind of bread-and-butter of the startup world.

sytelus 10y ago

I've to give it to Taleb to bring some rather fundamental and obvious in hindsight insights to explicit clarity. Although one must not confuse anecdotes with statistics, his writing style is gold. The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates.

sctb 10y ago

Recent discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dictatorship%20small%20minority&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=pastMonth&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dictatorship%20small%20minorit...

squozzer 10y ago

Taleb mentions the brilliance of Hannibal but fails to mention the stubborness of the Romans, who never offered terms, even after many defeats. In the end, Rome destroyed Carthage.

Mickydtron 10y ago
I actually am struggling to see the real relevance of the military examples there at the end. It seems to be there to show that stubbornness and/or courage results in winning (to rather grossly simplify). But it should be obvious that neither stubbornness or courage are enough for military victory, and it's not too hard to find examples where the opposite was what brought victory. In fact, we don't even need to leave the Punic wars. Hannibal's winning move at Cannae was in fact to have the center of his battle formation not be stubborn, and fall back, drawing the Romans into an encircling trap. Fabian's strategy was seen as cowardly, but as squozzer notes, Hannibal didn't destroy Rome, while Rome did eventually destroy Carthage.

Mickydtron 10y ago

The core insight here, while interesting, ended up being much more generic than I was expecting it to be after the initial examples. It seems to boil down to "There exist mechanisms by which a small group can either grow to dominate a larger group, or have their behavioral norms spread to outside of their group, or otherwise punch above their weight. These mechanisms involve a rule or circumstance that is asymmetric." It is an interesting principle, and useful to keep in mind, but I do not think it really supports all of the points he makes with it, or justify some of the language used. For example, I do not think that all drinks being Kosher, or a high prevalence of halal butcher shops, merit being described as "dictatorships". In the examples that would merit such strong language, such as the possibility of an anti-democratic religion dominating a democratic society and culture, I do not think that the Power of Asymmetry Principle leads where he tries to go. Specifically, he says that we need to be "more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities". However, if we examine the situation while keeping the power of asymmetry in mind, all we need to do is look for the asymmetry that would give this group its power, and take that away. In this case, the ability to use violence to enforce religious rules, specifically the death penalty for apostasy. Without the threat of violence, fundamentalist Islam would look much more like fundamentalist Christianity, trying (with various levels of success) to enforce its norms through political and interpersonal channels, but far from an unstoppable juggernaut.