Yep, Taleb's Medium account is a great place to go if you value any kind of expertise and want to raise your blood pressure. However, this is one of the very f

Yep, Taleb's Medium account is a great place to go if you value any kind of expertise and want to raise your blood pressure. However, this is one of the very few pieces by Taleb I sort of like. He makes an important point: if you work for an organization, and you aren't financially independent, you are not a slave iff that organization needs you more than you need them. In some ways, he independently discovered the concept of leverage here in 2016. But there is a danger in this line of thinking that he gets close to when he talks about Putin. It reminds me of the logic of "pick-up artists": the idea is that simply acting independent substitutes for the reality of being independent. That really doesn't work in most cases, although there are always many people who can't see through the facade, which may make it a useful tactic in politics. If this kind of bluff is used in employment, it relies on the assumption your employer is gullible, which is not a safe assumption to make. And if you actually do have the reality, I see no reason to boast about it. "Any man who must say, 'I am the king' is no true king", and all that.