The funny thing about this anecdote is that Taleb's premise is itself a narrative fallacy - specifically, he uses story to imply that all (or most) first approx

The funny thing about this anecdote is that Taleb's premise is itself a narrative fallacy - specifically, he uses story to imply that all (or most) first approximations are oversimplified and therefore wrong, or at least incomplete. Taleb's description of the human susceptibility to story is itself told through story. How much of what we know about this idea is itself an oversimplification? How deep does the rabbit hole go? This is the major challenge of the 21st century, in my opinion - the old information authorities (newspapers, big 3 TV news) haven't just been broken, but completely shattered. We've reverted to our tribal roots - trusting the word of respected members of our tribe - but now that our tribes can extend across the globe and encompass millions, it's like we're all standing in one giant town square shouting at each other about how to deal with things like COVID-19. I agree that susceptibility to story is a real thing; ad agencies and scriptwriters have been trading on this phenomenon for a century. The problem is that we aren't even trying to train ourselves out of it. Without a practiced ability to recognize when we're being led through a nice-sounding story, anyone who can weave a good tale will capture huge numbers of people through the internet for their own purposes. For examples, see flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, and the various political disinformation campaigns. I don't know what the solution is. But I worry a lot about the ability of powerful interests to capture more power when the general populace is in chaos. Early 21st century USA is in a state of intense intellectual chaos, and the increasing pace of capital accumulation at the top of our society is an ill omen.