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That's not completely fair. In his latest interview with Gad Saad, he makes the critical distinction between the danger of Salafism/Wahhabism and the relative b

That's not completely fair. In his latest interview with Gad Saad, he makes the critical distinction between the danger of Salafism/Wahhabism and the relative benign nature of Shiite Islam. He takes offense at "BS vendors" like Sam Harris who lump all of Islam into a fearmongering category.

shaki-dora 9y ago
The “suicide” line was a direct quote from a recent article of his. It just struck a chord with me because that exact phrase happens to be one of the slogans of my country’s alt-right party. In the article, he mostly talked about the danger of allowing halal food in “our” supermarkets. Since Shiites share their Sunni breathrens’ food preferences, Taleb should maybe take more care to allow his nuanced view of the world to shine through in his shorter works, lest he be misunderstood for an old egomaniac trying to ride the current wave of hatred to one last moment in the spotlight.
- scrumper 9y ago
  Re: Halal - That part of the book[1] talks about minority rule and the idea of 'renormalization groups' (I suspect not really the same thing as the identically-named concept in mathematics). It covers Kosher food, organic food, non-GMO food, Halal food, Christian intolerance, and politics. So saying it is about the "danger of halal food in our supermarkets" isn't accurate. It is explaining the mechanism by which a small, intolerant minority is able to have its views spread. [1] http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf
dragonwriter 9y ago
> he makes the critical distinction between the danger of Salafism/Wahhabism and the benign nature of Shiite Islam. Pretending that the dangers within Islam are isolated to particular Sunni sects and that there's none of that dangerous religiously grounded violent extremism on the Shi’a side of the divide is, to be sure, a different error than typical “The West is dying” islamophobia, but no less of one.
gr__or 9y ago
What is the punishment for homosexuality within Shia Islam? What about apostasy? Caling it benign is what I'd call vending BS.

shaki-dora 9y ago

The “suicide” line was a direct quote from a recent article of his. It just struck a chord with me because that exact phrase happens to be one of the slogans of my country’s alt-right party. In the article, he mostly talked about the danger of allowing halal food in “our” supermarkets. Since Shiites share their Sunni breathrens’ food preferences, Taleb should maybe take more care to allow his nuanced view of the world to shine through in his shorter works, lest he be misunderstood for an old egomaniac trying to ride the current wave of hatred to one last moment in the spotlight.

scrumper 9y ago
Re: Halal - That part of the book[1] talks about minority rule and the idea of 'renormalization groups' (I suspect not really the same thing as the identically-named concept in mathematics). It covers Kosher food, organic food, non-GMO food, Halal food, Christian intolerance, and politics. So saying it is about the "danger of halal food in our supermarkets" isn't accurate. It is explaining the mechanism by which a small, intolerant minority is able to have its views spread. [1] http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf http://fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf

dragonwriter 9y ago

> he makes the critical distinction between the danger of Salafism/Wahhabism and the benign nature of Shiite Islam. Pretending that the dangers within Islam are isolated to particular Sunni sects and that there's none of that dangerous religiously grounded violent extremism on the Shi’a side of the divide is, to be sure, a different error than typical “The West is dying” islamophobia, but no less of one.

gr__or 9y ago

What is the punishment for homosexuality within Shia Islam? What about apostasy? Caling it benign is what I'd call vending BS.