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Thing is that he picks an organizing principle⁽¹⁾ and rides it into the ground, through the center of the earth, and back out the other side until eventually de

Thing is that he picks an organizing principle⁽¹⁾ and rides it into the ground, through the center of the earth, and back out the other side until eventually de-emphasizing it in favor of some new organizing principle more attractive to current audiences. That is: there are geological layers of taleb based entirely in reader-response. He can't make his subject matter audience-invariant, because how it plays determines its significance to him: it's a feedback loop of bullshit by design. Right now all his acolytes can manage to sputter forth is acronymized slogans like SITG (skin in the game), so that's what he plays up. Formerly it was stuff like antifragility, etc. It just keeps devolving. ____________________ ¹ http://enwp.org/organizing_principle http://enwp.org/organizing_principle

darawk 9y ago
> Thing is that he picks an organizing principle⁽¹⁾ and rides it into the ground, through the center of the earth, and back out the other side until eventually de-emphasizing it in favor of some new organizing principle more attractive to current audiences. I don't disagree, but I think that the organizing principles he's settled upon (by whatever process) are interesting.
- jcahill 9y ago
  the poetics of successful sophistry is a potential research topic in its own right, so sure
  - darawk 9y ago
    It is possible to find a man to be a jackass, and have a few interesting ideas simultaneously. You haven't attempted to criticize any of his actual ideas, just his presentation of them. A criticism I agree with, though in so doing you're really committing his own primary sin: Trying to defeat substance by criticizing style. If you've got specific gripes with his math, i'd be curious to hear that, or criticisms of his actual ideas i'd be curious to hear those too.
    - jcahill 9y ago
      Trouble there is simple: academically, he hasn't really innovated anything substantial enough to bother discussing in isolation. I mean that in a purely descriptive sense. Just take a look at his google scholar⁽¹⁾ or crossref search⁽²⁾ hits and gloss over the books, republications of books, translations of books. What remains are miscellaneous vagaries about tail risk etc. In particular, lots of reviews / position papers that amount to him just setting up strawmen to tear down. That contrarian browbeating is what drove him to prominence. And in sole-author article form, the attendant research laziness manifests itself as junk like this⁽³⁾ thing that's lower quality discussion of the subject matter than a lot of replication forum posts. ____________________ ¹ https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=64BtMdsAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=64BtMdsAAAAJ ² https://search.crossref.org/?q=%2BNassim+%2BTaleb&type=Journal+Article https://search.crossref.org/?q=%2BNassim+%2BTaleb&type=Journ... ³ Taleb, N.N., 2016. The Meta-Distribution of Standard P-Values. SSRN. http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2834266 http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2834266

darawk 9y ago

> Thing is that he picks an organizing principle⁽¹⁾ and rides it into the ground, through the center of the earth, and back out the other side until eventually de-emphasizing it in favor of some new organizing principle more attractive to current audiences. I don't disagree, but I think that the organizing principles he's settled upon (by whatever process) are interesting.

jcahill 9y ago
the poetics of successful sophistry is a potential research topic in its own right, so sure
- darawk 9y ago
  It is possible to find a man to be a jackass, and have a few interesting ideas simultaneously. You haven't attempted to criticize any of his actual ideas, just his presentation of them. A criticism I agree with, though in so doing you're really committing his own primary sin: Trying to defeat substance by criticizing style. If you've got specific gripes with his math, i'd be curious to hear that, or criticisms of his actual ideas i'd be curious to hear those too.
  - jcahill 9y ago
    Trouble there is simple: academically, he hasn't really innovated anything substantial enough to bother discussing in isolation. I mean that in a purely descriptive sense. Just take a look at his google scholar⁽¹⁾ or crossref search⁽²⁾ hits and gloss over the books, republications of books, translations of books. What remains are miscellaneous vagaries about tail risk etc. In particular, lots of reviews / position papers that amount to him just setting up strawmen to tear down. That contrarian browbeating is what drove him to prominence. And in sole-author article form, the attendant research laziness manifests itself as junk like this⁽³⁾ thing that's lower quality discussion of the subject matter than a lot of replication forum posts. ____________________ ¹ https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=64BtMdsAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=64BtMdsAAAAJ ² https://search.crossref.org/?q=%2BNassim+%2BTaleb&type=Journal+Article https://search.crossref.org/?q=%2BNassim+%2BTaleb&type=Journ... ³ Taleb, N.N., 2016. The Meta-Distribution of Standard P-Values. SSRN. http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2834266 http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2834266