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I too really enjoyed his book and speeches and similarly am not necessarily on board with a lot of his politics. I can't really square the reasoning though. I c

by bko 4y ago

I too really enjoyed his book and speeches and similarly am not necessarily on board with a lot of his politics. I can't really square the reasoning though. I can't pinpoint the disconnect between their ideas and prescriptions. I feel the same way about Taleb. I read all his books, some more than once and they taught me a lot. But sometimes he just has ridiculous positions and behavior. But with him I attribute to being incredibly petty and thin-skinned. For instance Snowden pointed out a series of tweets where he called people imbeciles and other names and now he literally tweets every month about how he's a fraud, traitor and Russian stooge. Same happened with an author of a popular Bitcoin book for which Taleb wrote an introduction praising Bitcoin. Since then Taleb disagreed with the covid policy criticisms coming from the author and all of a sudden Bitcoin was a ponzi scheme. It's really sad

qqqwerty 4y ago
The skills required to be a good capitalist are almost in direct opposition to the skills needed for good governance. Capitalism requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, a lot of risk taking, and maximizing efficiency. Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.
- bko 4y ago
  > Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. Politics requires primarily the skill to get elected.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
Taleb is basically a con artist imo. He writes about ideas which are obvious but obfuscated to seem insightful, then claims that mainstream experts don't agree with them, and implies that he was the first to understand it and that you must be a smart person because you see it all yourself. It's a vicious persuasive technique and it seems to be his entire MO. Constantly he will attack people by asserting they hold specific views and challenge them to defend them.

by bko 4y ago

qqqwerty 4y ago

The skills required to be a good capitalist are almost in direct opposition to the skills needed for good governance. Capitalism requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, a lot of risk taking, and maximizing efficiency. Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. It also doesn't help that Thiel is a bit of a troll when it comes to politics. When talking about business/startups he comes across as fairly reasonable and composed. But when it comes to politics his words and actions take on a more Trumpian tone. And this tone pre-dates Trump's influence on politics. For example his Stanford Review work was fairly troll-ish in nature.

bko 4y ago
> Politics (ideally) requires empathy, risk mitigation, and consensus building. Politics requires primarily the skill to get elected.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

Taleb is basically a con artist imo. He writes about ideas which are obvious but obfuscated to seem insightful, then claims that mainstream experts don't agree with them, and implies that he was the first to understand it and that you must be a smart person because you see it all yourself. It's a vicious persuasive technique and it seems to be his entire MO. Constantly he will attack people by asserting they hold specific views and challenge them to defend them.