5 ms·

I used to like Taleb (maybe due to my disillusionment after 2008), but it's becoming more and more clear to me that he doesn't really contribute that much to th

by dvt 6y ago

I used to like Taleb (maybe due to my disillusionment after 2008), but it's becoming more and more clear to me that he doesn't really contribute that much to the intellectual landscape; he's very much in the same vein as someone like Jordan Peterson. His Twitter machismo and pseudo-trolling is also pretty telling -- if I were a millionaire, I'd probably be fishing off the coast of Malta, not picking internet fights on Twitter. I read his entire Incerto, and it was an absolute slog. Endless chapters just about how he's smarter than other Wall Street guys. Antifragile is probably the best book in the series, but the concept itself could be relegated to an essay -- not a whole book. As far as the article itself is concerned, it's typical doomerism. His entire post-Wall Street career revolves around doom and gloom (his main claim to fame being "black swan" events), so of course it makes sense that, from a Talebian perspective, the world will end by 2035.

mjburgess 6y ago
> if I were a millionaire, I'd probably be fishing off the coast of Malta Becoming a millionaire isn't like winning the lottery. For those who achieve it through passion & work, they are self-selectively not the people who will wake up one morning and "go fishing".
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  And how is getting into Twitter spats any preferable to a self-made millionaire?
  - devit 6y ago
    Ego gratification, acquisition of narcissistic supply.
- harry8 6y ago
  Yeah it is. Maybe you get some more tickets through passion and work but that's the full extent of it. You can be brilliant, passionate and set new levels of hard work and not have your number come up. Most vastly wealthy inherited. Don't kid yourself. Risk is risk. The only inevitability is death. (Remember when that used to be "Death and Taxes." We should go back to when taxes were in that list).
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    My point wasn't about luck. It was about the route to wealth. A lottery requires no specific sort of character. Making a million, often, does. The sort of determined character that isn't going to wake up one morning and "stop doing what made them rich". Because it was never about being rich, it was always about what they were doing. It's why Jerry Seinfeld, a billionaire, continues to do stand up. He's on stage for netflix, not "fishing".
    - harry8 6y ago
      Bob Hope played golf because he didn't need the applause. Randy Newman says he does need it. So what? What's Jordan doing? What's Ringo Starr up to? It sucks that there's not much "justice" in getting hugely rich but the fact remains. All kinds of folks get there. All kinds don't. Some work hard. Some just fail upwards. Don't fall for the cherry picked BS of "which of you sublime charter traits ensured your success" It's crap and it smells bad too. "Get up early. Strike oil." Doesn't matter what style of person you are.
      - mjburgess 6y ago
        I don't think they're sublime. But they're pretty reliably present traits: autistical, narcissitic, risk-taking, etc. Don't fall for the leftwing resentiment of hating the rich either. The reality is that there's huge amounts of social mobility across all wealth brackets, and enmass, those moving in/out of the top 5% do have quite reliable characteristics. Eg., of the "top 1%" almost everyone in that class is only it in for, on average, 9mo in their entire lifetime. The risk-taking needed to get you there, equally, knocks you out. The reality of a functioning economy is that a certain kind of "competence" (even if its psychopathic) is selected for. Regardless of the handful of celebrities and strike-it-rich anecdotes you can analyse in tabloid fashion. The comment i was replying to expressed surprise that a rich person would be doing anything other than wasting time on a holiday: thus they express their (relative) poverty. Very few rich people would find it remarkable they weren't wasting time: that is precisely what they have never done.
danharaj 6y ago
His technical papers are fun to read and based on solid mathematics. He's collecting that work into a book which is about as poorly edited as you would expect but the math is solid. There is no sense in which Taleb is as vapid as JBP.
- dvt 6y ago
  I've read a couple, but I'm not a statistician, so I can't comment with any authority on his papers. For what it's worth, JBP has written more papers and is cited way more widely than Taleb. (But I'm not a psychologist either.)
- mistermann 6y ago
  vapid - offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging. I'm curious how you have evaluated JBP to be vapid, could you provide some details of your analysis?
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    JBP is absolutely off wrt Post-Modernism. He keeps quoting Hicks' books on Postmodernism which must be dismissed as fraud[1]. (Hicks himself presents his book on white supremacist Stefan Molyeux's podcast[2]). my problem with JBP is that he presents his ideas as facts but they are nothing more than pseudo science and cherry picking to fit his narrative (e.g. he hasn't really understood the Jungian archetypes and keeps waffling on about it with great confidence). He seems to fit very well into Alan Sokal's definition of the "intellectual imposter". (the irony here is that Sokal himself hasn't understood postmodernism lol) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      Whether Sokal understands postmodernism is besides the point; his hoax was more about a process rather than about an argument
    - 6y ago
pizza 6y ago
I suppose it depends on whether or not you believe Taleb lives up to his motto of "If you see fraud, and you do not shout fraud, you are a fraud."
rimutaka 6y ago
> if I were a millionaire, I'd probably be fishing off the coast of Malta Nice weather, but not much fish. https://eu.oceana.org/en/press-center/press-releases/un-alert-mediterranean-worlds-most-overfished-sea https://eu.oceana.org/en/press-center/press-releases/un-aler...
blaser-waffle 6y ago
A millionaire has the luxury of indulging any hobby he wishes. Some people like to fish, some like to argue on the internet. Case in point, here we are. With money and notoriety, he can flex that love of argument all he wants without having to worry about upsetting his masters. JBP is a rehash of 1990's Heritage Foundation whitepapers. He's a good speaker, but there is no new ground there; Talib at least can hold some water with Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness.

by dvt 6y ago

mjburgess 6y ago

> if I were a millionaire, I'd probably be fishing off the coast of Malta Becoming a millionaire isn't like winning the lottery. For those who achieve it through passion & work, they are self-selectively not the people who will wake up one morning and "go fishing".

Apocryphon 6y ago
And how is getting into Twitter spats any preferable to a self-made millionaire?
- devit 6y ago
  Ego gratification, acquisition of narcissistic supply.
harry8 6y ago
Yeah it is. Maybe you get some more tickets through passion and work but that's the full extent of it. You can be brilliant, passionate and set new levels of hard work and not have your number come up. Most vastly wealthy inherited. Don't kid yourself. Risk is risk. The only inevitability is death. (Remember when that used to be "Death and Taxes." We should go back to when taxes were in that list).
- mjburgess 6y ago
  My point wasn't about luck. It was about the route to wealth. A lottery requires no specific sort of character. Making a million, often, does. The sort of determined character that isn't going to wake up one morning and "stop doing what made them rich". Because it was never about being rich, it was always about what they were doing. It's why Jerry Seinfeld, a billionaire, continues to do stand up. He's on stage for netflix, not "fishing".
  - harry8 6y ago
    Bob Hope played golf because he didn't need the applause. Randy Newman says he does need it. So what? What's Jordan doing? What's Ringo Starr up to? It sucks that there's not much "justice" in getting hugely rich but the fact remains. All kinds of folks get there. All kinds don't. Some work hard. Some just fail upwards. Don't fall for the cherry picked BS of "which of you sublime charter traits ensured your success" It's crap and it smells bad too. "Get up early. Strike oil." Doesn't matter what style of person you are.
    - mjburgess 6y ago
      I don't think they're sublime. But they're pretty reliably present traits: autistical, narcissitic, risk-taking, etc. Don't fall for the leftwing resentiment of hating the rich either. The reality is that there's huge amounts of social mobility across all wealth brackets, and enmass, those moving in/out of the top 5% do have quite reliable characteristics. Eg., of the "top 1%" almost everyone in that class is only it in for, on average, 9mo in their entire lifetime. The risk-taking needed to get you there, equally, knocks you out. The reality of a functioning economy is that a certain kind of "competence" (even if its psychopathic) is selected for. Regardless of the handful of celebrities and strike-it-rich anecdotes you can analyse in tabloid fashion. The comment i was replying to expressed surprise that a rich person would be doing anything other than wasting time on a holiday: thus they express their (relative) poverty. Very few rich people would find it remarkable they weren't wasting time: that is precisely what they have never done.

danharaj 6y ago

His technical papers are fun to read and based on solid mathematics. He's collecting that work into a book which is about as poorly edited as you would expect but the math is solid. There is no sense in which Taleb is as vapid as JBP.

dvt 6y ago
I've read a couple, but I'm not a statistician, so I can't comment with any authority on his papers. For what it's worth, JBP has written more papers and is cited way more widely than Taleb. (But I'm not a psychologist either.)
mistermann 6y ago
vapid - offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging. I'm curious how you have evaluated JBP to be vapid, could you provide some details of your analysis?
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  JBP is absolutely off wrt Post-Modernism. He keeps quoting Hicks' books on Postmodernism which must be dismissed as fraud[1]. (Hicks himself presents his book on white supremacist Stefan Molyeux's podcast[2]). my problem with JBP is that he presents his ideas as facts but they are nothing more than pseudo science and cherry picking to fit his narrative (e.g. he hasn't really understood the Jungian archetypes and keeps waffling on about it with great confidence). He seems to fit very well into Alan Sokal's definition of the "intellectual imposter". (the irony here is that Sokal himself hasn't understood postmodernism lol) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    Whether Sokal understands postmodernism is besides the point; his hoax was more about a process rather than about an argument
  - 6y ago

pizza 6y ago

I suppose it depends on whether or not you believe Taleb lives up to his motto of "If you see fraud, and you do not shout fraud, you are a fraud."

rimutaka 6y ago

> if I were a millionaire, I'd probably be fishing off the coast of Malta Nice weather, but not much fish. https://eu.oceana.org/en/press-center/press-releases/un-alert-mediterranean-worlds-most-overfished-sea https://eu.oceana.org/en/press-center/press-releases/un-aler...

blaser-waffle 6y ago

A millionaire has the luxury of indulging any hobby he wishes. Some people like to fish, some like to argue on the internet. Case in point, here we are. With money and notoriety, he can flex that love of argument all he wants without having to worry about upsetting his masters. JBP is a rehash of 1990's Heritage Foundation whitepapers. He's a good speaker, but there is no new ground there; Talib at least can hold some water with Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness.