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I just can't pass it. I gave my best at reading his book. The guy is unable to write one paragraph which doesn't contain some nonsense or serious misuse of esta

I just can't pass it. I gave my best at reading his book. The guy is unable to write one paragraph which doesn't contain some nonsense or serious misuse of established terms. He is insulting whole groups of people and institutions without giving any examples or research. I am pretty sure that if his stuff were posted without his name the conclusion would be obvious: it's just nonsense and very offensive at that. I realize calling people idiots are frown upon here but I am ready to defend it. There isn't one other author which infuriates me with his ignorance and inability to make specific point without throwing condescending remarks. If there is anybody who deserve the term it's him. I mean "we should retire standard deviation because everybody misues it and it's not useful for real life" without any examples ? He just called out thousands of scientist, risk managers and statisticians without giving one single argument. His suggestion to just use mean deviation is laughable and obviously doesn't work for many purposes which he didn't address while being condescending in the process. It's worse than saying: "we should retire Java and just use Python because it has dynamic typing and seemingly developers at even serious companies fail to see this!". Remark of this kind would gain me "idiot" badge pretty quickly. This article is on this level (well, actually lower as remark about Python actually contains an argument) and his book is worse. If that doesn't qualify him as an idiot I don't know what else could.

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
Eric Falkenstein's various Taleb takedowns are fun. http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-fragility.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-frag... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates-kanye-west.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-black-swan.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac...
- derivagral 13y ago
  Your first link is an excerpt from [1]. I'm not sure its much of a takedown either? I found the second and fourth links very interesting, thanks for the other perspective. [1] http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/03/qa-confidence-in-the-bell-curve.html#more http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/03/qa-confidence-...
- brohee 13y ago
  Is it telling that in his review of Black Swann he's seriously citing Malcolm Gadwell of all people?
  - a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
    Your reading comprehension is questionable if you consider that a citation.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    No. He draws no conclusions from Gladwell's analysis; he brings Gladwell into the discussion only to show a well-publicized comparison between what Gladwell believed to be two opposing views of how risk works in the markets. He then tries to demonstrate that Niederhoffer's approach outperformed Taleb's, not because Gladwell said so, but because the empirically available facts of how the funds operated appear to demonstrate it. Gladwell plays into the comparison about as much as the editors of Cosmopolitan would play into it if Niederhoffer and Taleb had shared the cover of an issue of Cosmo.
ThomPete 13y ago
Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. And I think you are letting your hate to him cloud your ability to want to understand what he is trying to say. I personally find his books mostly valid critiques of established "truths", probably because I agree with much of it. If that makes me a vile idiot I am fine with that. Each to their own.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. I was about to write the exact same thing. It is very hard to take this criticism seriously when it is written that way.
  - bluecalm 13y ago
    Replying to you and parents: > Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. I am really not doing it. I gave specific examples of what is wrong with his article and in what areas standard deviation works. I am not defending a view that "standard deviation describes reality better" or anything like that. I am saying why his article is bad and in what areas his solution of just using MAD doesn't work. Those are quite specific things. How can you tell I am doing the same thing I am accusing him of ? While I didn't mention any specific fragment in his book I thought it's a useful view to add it as I've spent a lot of time developing it (I've read 3 books of him and listened to many talks). There is limited space in internet forum post and proving my point would require quoting the entire book as I claimed there is barely any paragraph without nonsense or term misuse. Also my claim is easily verifiable: just start reading "Antifragile" and see for yourself. That can't be said about his claims. > Nassim is not saying to get rid of the concept, but more like saying a lot of people are not using it correctly. Really? That's the vibe you get from the article ? Let's see: >it is time to retire it from common use and replace it with the more effective one of mean deviation >Standard deviation, STD, should be left to mathematicians, physicists and mathematical statisticians deriving limit theorems. There is no scientific reason to use it in statistical investigations in the age of the computer >as it does more harm than good >It is all due to a historical accident: in 1893 He is not saying that some people in some situations misuse the concept. He is saying the concept is dangerous and should be disposed of. I get that he is easy to like as he picks on groups not generally liked but let's stick to what he is actually claiming instead of softening it for him. Again, he doesn't give one simple example of a situation which could be handled better by using MAD instead of now used standard deviation.
antiterra 13y ago
The guy is clearly not an idiot in the general sense; I bet he is of, at least, average intelligence. I also have my doubts that he is 'vile' for the majority of connotations and denotations of that word. Because of this, just shouting 'he's an idiot!' is vulnerable to being dismissed as hyperbole, and your baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. You seem exasperated at his condescending attitude, but make no effort to hold higher ground. That said, even dismissing him as a 'crank' would add more substance to your argument than calling him a 'vile idiot.' I'm not saying you have to play softball, and there are plenty of targets for your rage. Call his condescension vile, and his poorly-thought out conclusions laughable. Instead of saying he's an idiot, you can say that he's being lazy and should know better exactly because he's NOT an idiot.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >That said, even dismissing him as a 'crank' would add more substance to your argument than calling him a 'vile idiot.' Neither "crank" or "vile idiot" would add substance to bluecalm's argument. "Vile idiot" isn't even part of the argument, it's part of the conclusion. I disagree with bluecalm on the "vile idiot" conclusion - I think that he's either vile or an idiot. If he's really communicating how he sees the world, he's an idiot. If he's just cynically trying to come up with another Gladwell/Taleb style thesis that will catch fire with the NYT and TED crowd and bring in buckets of money, then he's vile.
- tsax 13y ago
  Yeah a polyglot who writes classical Greek, Arabic, French, English and can do advanced statistical modeling is clearly an idiot right?
  - bluecalm 13y ago
    Well, it surely looks like it seeing level of argument he presents and lack of logical consistency in his writing. Even in this article he claims SD doesn't model real world as well as MAD and then as arguments ask you what would you do if you were asked to calculate... MAD, you would clearly see it's not SD :-) His latest book is worse than the article and my conclusion about him being and idiot is based mainly on it. Here is one gem from his book: >>True, while humans self-repair, they eventually wear out (hopefully leaving their genes, books, or some other information behind—another discussion). But the phenomenon of aging is misunderstood, largely fraught with mental biases and logical flaws. We observe old people and see them age, so we associate aging with their loss of muscle mass, bone weakness, loss of mental function, taste for Frank Sinatra music, and similar degenerative effects. But these failures to self-repair come largely from maladjustment—either too few stressors or too little time for recovery between them— and maladjustment for this author is the mismatch between one’s design and the structure of the randomness of the environment (what I call more technically its “distributional or statistical properties”). What we observe in “aging” is a combination of maladjustment and senescence, and it appears that the two are separable— senescence might not be avoidable, and should not be avoided (it would contradict the logic of life, as we will see in the next chapter); maladjustment is avoidable. Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort—a disease of civilization: make life longer and longer, while people are more and more sick. In a natural environment, people die without aging—or after a very short period of aging. For instance, some markers, such as blood pressure, that tend to worsen over time for moderns do not change over the life of hunter-gatherers until the very end. And this artificial aging comes from stifling internal antifragility. In which he claims aging is misunderstood and proposes his new theory that it comes from too few stressors or too little recovery. Then he says that "Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort - a disease of civilization". Really ? Aging comes from misunderstanding ? This is just random babbling, there is no sense in it. Reasonable people don't write or talk like this and those who do with such conviction as him are called... well, idiots. >polyglot who writes classical Greek, Arabic, French, English and can do advanced statistical modeling is clearly an idiot right? If he is in fact a polyglot and in fact can do advanced statistical modelling (the latter I very much doubt, the former I have no idea about) maybe he is not an idiot but some mental illness is taking a toll on him which makes him write and talk like one. The thing is there is no continuity, what he sees as arguments don't even address the point. It's just stream of words without any essence or meaning. I mean again, read the paragraph I quoted.. it's not even cherry picked. There are worse (like the one about depression or academia). The whole book is like that and article from OP just continues the trend.
rosser 13y ago
...inability to make specific point without throwing condescending remarks. Hey, Kettle? It's Pot calling. He seems pretty pissed off about what color you are.
smsm42 13y ago
>>> I am pretty sure that if his stuff were posted without his name the conclusion would be obvious: it's just nonsense and very offensive at that. This is not true, at least for me. When I first read Taleb's ideas, I had no idea who he was and what is his credentials, but his ideas were interesting enough and challenging enough to look him up and find out what else he wrote. Yes, his style is abrasive and sometimes outright combative. So what. His ideas are interesting, that's what matters. I'd rather have an abrasive person who has interesting ideas than a polite one who has nothing. And speaking of Python vs. Java things, I'm reading those kind of things literally every day, frequently including here on HN. If idiot badges were distributed for each such occasions, there would be a very sizeable majority wearing them. But I am not convinced calling each other idiots is actually adds anything to the discussion.
dwd 13y ago
Taleb's books are full of stories, random ideas, non-sequitur thoughts and a quite a few rants about things that bother him. This essay was clearly an invitation to rant about something and the more controversial the better. Sure, he comes across as arrogant, confrontational and uncompromising and he is unapologetic on top of that; yet dismissing the bulk of his writing based on his personality and style of writing is a shame as the recurring theme throughout all his books are worth the time spent reading. To paraphrase: We believe and accept a lot of things without question and let fallacious thinking and cognitive biases lead us into making decisions and actions that do us harm. Also, his books are that rare type that you can pick up, read a few pages and have set off a train of thinking for the rest of the day.

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago

Eric Falkenstein's various Taleb takedowns are fun. http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/fama-on-taleb.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-fragility.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/taleb-mishandles-frag... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates-kanye-west.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/nassim-taleb-imitates... http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-black-swan.html http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac...

derivagral 13y ago
Your first link is an excerpt from [1]. I'm not sure its much of a takedown either? I found the second and fourth links very interesting, thanks for the other perspective. [1] http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/03/qa-confidence-in-the-bell-curve.html#more http://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/2009/03/qa-confidence-...
brohee 13y ago
Is it telling that in his review of Black Swann he's seriously citing Malcolm Gadwell of all people?
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  Your reading comprehension is questionable if you consider that a citation.
- tptacek 13y ago
  No. He draws no conclusions from Gladwell's analysis; he brings Gladwell into the discussion only to show a well-publicized comparison between what Gladwell believed to be two opposing views of how risk works in the markets. He then tries to demonstrate that Niederhoffer's approach outperformed Taleb's, not because Gladwell said so, but because the empirically available facts of how the funds operated appear to demonstrate it. Gladwell plays into the comparison about as much as the editors of Cosmopolitan would play into it if Niederhoffer and Taleb had shared the cover of an issue of Cosmo.

ThomPete 13y ago

Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. And I think you are letting your hate to him cloud your ability to want to understand what he is trying to say. I personally find his books mostly valid critiques of established "truths", probably because I agree with much of it. If that makes me a vile idiot I am fine with that. Each to their own.

vidarh 13y ago
> Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. I was about to write the exact same thing. It is very hard to take this criticism seriously when it is written that way.
- bluecalm 13y ago
  Replying to you and parents: > Funny I find your comments to be doing exactly what they are critiquing. I am really not doing it. I gave specific examples of what is wrong with his article and in what areas standard deviation works. I am not defending a view that "standard deviation describes reality better" or anything like that. I am saying why his article is bad and in what areas his solution of just using MAD doesn't work. Those are quite specific things. How can you tell I am doing the same thing I am accusing him of ? While I didn't mention any specific fragment in his book I thought it's a useful view to add it as I've spent a lot of time developing it (I've read 3 books of him and listened to many talks). There is limited space in internet forum post and proving my point would require quoting the entire book as I claimed there is barely any paragraph without nonsense or term misuse. Also my claim is easily verifiable: just start reading "Antifragile" and see for yourself. That can't be said about his claims. > Nassim is not saying to get rid of the concept, but more like saying a lot of people are not using it correctly. Really? That's the vibe you get from the article ? Let's see: >it is time to retire it from common use and replace it with the more effective one of mean deviation >Standard deviation, STD, should be left to mathematicians, physicists and mathematical statisticians deriving limit theorems. There is no scientific reason to use it in statistical investigations in the age of the computer >as it does more harm than good >It is all due to a historical accident: in 1893 He is not saying that some people in some situations misuse the concept. He is saying the concept is dangerous and should be disposed of. I get that he is easy to like as he picks on groups not generally liked but let's stick to what he is actually claiming instead of softening it for him. Again, he doesn't give one simple example of a situation which could be handled better by using MAD instead of now used standard deviation.

antiterra 13y ago

The guy is clearly not an idiot in the general sense; I bet he is of, at least, average intelligence. I also have my doubts that he is 'vile' for the majority of connotations and denotations of that word. Because of this, just shouting 'he's an idiot!' is vulnerable to being dismissed as hyperbole, and your baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. You seem exasperated at his condescending attitude, but make no effort to hold higher ground. That said, even dismissing him as a 'crank' would add more substance to your argument than calling him a 'vile idiot.' I'm not saying you have to play softball, and there are plenty of targets for your rage. Call his condescension vile, and his poorly-thought out conclusions laughable. Instead of saying he's an idiot, you can say that he's being lazy and should know better exactly because he's NOT an idiot.

pessimizer 13y ago
>That said, even dismissing him as a 'crank' would add more substance to your argument than calling him a 'vile idiot.' Neither "crank" or "vile idiot" would add substance to bluecalm's argument. "Vile idiot" isn't even part of the argument, it's part of the conclusion. I disagree with bluecalm on the "vile idiot" conclusion - I think that he's either vile or an idiot. If he's really communicating how he sees the world, he's an idiot. If he's just cynically trying to come up with another Gladwell/Taleb style thesis that will catch fire with the NYT and TED crowd and bring in buckets of money, then he's vile.
tsax 13y ago
Yeah a polyglot who writes classical Greek, Arabic, French, English and can do advanced statistical modeling is clearly an idiot right?
- bluecalm 13y ago
  Well, it surely looks like it seeing level of argument he presents and lack of logical consistency in his writing. Even in this article he claims SD doesn't model real world as well as MAD and then as arguments ask you what would you do if you were asked to calculate... MAD, you would clearly see it's not SD :-) His latest book is worse than the article and my conclusion about him being and idiot is based mainly on it. Here is one gem from his book: >>True, while humans self-repair, they eventually wear out (hopefully leaving their genes, books, or some other information behind—another discussion). But the phenomenon of aging is misunderstood, largely fraught with mental biases and logical flaws. We observe old people and see them age, so we associate aging with their loss of muscle mass, bone weakness, loss of mental function, taste for Frank Sinatra music, and similar degenerative effects. But these failures to self-repair come largely from maladjustment—either too few stressors or too little time for recovery between them— and maladjustment for this author is the mismatch between one’s design and the structure of the randomness of the environment (what I call more technically its “distributional or statistical properties”). What we observe in “aging” is a combination of maladjustment and senescence, and it appears that the two are separable— senescence might not be avoidable, and should not be avoided (it would contradict the logic of life, as we will see in the next chapter); maladjustment is avoidable. Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort—a disease of civilization: make life longer and longer, while people are more and more sick. In a natural environment, people die without aging—or after a very short period of aging. For instance, some markers, such as blood pressure, that tend to worsen over time for moderns do not change over the life of hunter-gatherers until the very end. And this artificial aging comes from stifling internal antifragility. In which he claims aging is misunderstood and proposes his new theory that it comes from too few stressors or too little recovery. Then he says that "Much of aging comes from a misunderstanding of the effect of comfort - a disease of civilization". Really ? Aging comes from misunderstanding ? This is just random babbling, there is no sense in it. Reasonable people don't write or talk like this and those who do with such conviction as him are called... well, idiots. >polyglot who writes classical Greek, Arabic, French, English and can do advanced statistical modeling is clearly an idiot right? If he is in fact a polyglot and in fact can do advanced statistical modelling (the latter I very much doubt, the former I have no idea about) maybe he is not an idiot but some mental illness is taking a toll on him which makes him write and talk like one. The thing is there is no continuity, what he sees as arguments don't even address the point. It's just stream of words without any essence or meaning. I mean again, read the paragraph I quoted.. it's not even cherry picked. There are worse (like the one about depression or academia). The whole book is like that and article from OP just continues the trend.

rosser 13y ago

...inability to make specific point without throwing condescending remarks. Hey, Kettle? It's Pot calling. He seems pretty pissed off about what color you are.

smsm42 13y ago

>>> I am pretty sure that if his stuff were posted without his name the conclusion would be obvious: it's just nonsense and very offensive at that. This is not true, at least for me. When I first read Taleb's ideas, I had no idea who he was and what is his credentials, but his ideas were interesting enough and challenging enough to look him up and find out what else he wrote. Yes, his style is abrasive and sometimes outright combative. So what. His ideas are interesting, that's what matters. I'd rather have an abrasive person who has interesting ideas than a polite one who has nothing. And speaking of Python vs. Java things, I'm reading those kind of things literally every day, frequently including here on HN. If idiot badges were distributed for each such occasions, there would be a very sizeable majority wearing them. But I am not convinced calling each other idiots is actually adds anything to the discussion.

dwd 13y ago

Taleb's books are full of stories, random ideas, non-sequitur thoughts and a quite a few rants about things that bother him. This essay was clearly an invitation to rant about something and the more controversial the better. Sure, he comes across as arrogant, confrontational and uncompromising and he is unapologetic on top of that; yet dismissing the bulk of his writing based on his personality and style of writing is a shame as the recurring theme throughout all his books are worth the time spent reading. To paraphrase: We believe and accept a lot of things without question and let fallacious thinking and cognitive biases lead us into making decisions and actions that do us harm. Also, his books are that rare type that you can pick up, read a few pages and have set off a train of thinking for the rest of the day.