4 ms·

Very nice! I did have his books on my reading list. But this whole discussion definitely puts me closer to the "waste of my time" side of the distribution.

lhnz 13y ago
That would be a mistake. He's getting a lot of hate because he's insulted a lot of people while stretching some of his arguments and opinions too far, but his ideas are still better intellectual reading than most of what's available elsewhere. If you care to read the comments again, you'll notice many of the disagreements with him are on the level of knee-jerk emotional reactions and not well reasoned criticism. However, it's true that he's turned/turning into some gigantic obnoxious ego whose ideas are beginning to look like wild gambles (speaking more often than he substantiates.) He's definitely intelligent and I would say a genius, but in each book it's like: 10% great ideas, 30% very interesting intuitions, 30% vitriolic anger at people/institutions/ideas, 30% broken ideas/intuitions. But all is sold as the truth (tm). If you wish to increase the quality of what you read you could use Taleb's own heuristic: when a book has existed for a thousand years it will exist for a thousand more. Time is a great arbiter for importance. My point is that you either hazard a guess on which of his ideas are powerful, or you wait until the dust settles and somebody else has done this work for you.
- avenger123 13y ago
  +1 for this. Your comment is definitely the most reasonable in this discussion. I'll likely read his Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan at some point.
eruditely 13y ago
Sigh. If you read his books or papers or see a lecture or the technical companions, you will see that the case against him is vastly overstated. It's like how social justice people probably view PG right now. He is pretty reasonable and I love seeing him accused of all sorts of things here when it's obviously vastly overstated. He lives for trolling the try-hard crew found here. Do you seriously think he is advocating the absolute abolition of std deviation inquisition style?
arjie 13y ago
You should be aware that HN and other online comment forums often have 'negative' posts. Comments that attempt to show up the author of a linked article are a kind of intellectual one-upmanship that is common on Reddit/HN/etc. I haven't read Nassim Taleb's work either, but comment forums like HN are a poor place to get an idea of the quality of someone's work unless they have clear and substantial criticisms. You're usually better off getting your reviews elsewhere.

lhnz 13y ago

That would be a mistake. He's getting a lot of hate because he's insulted a lot of people while stretching some of his arguments and opinions too far, but his ideas are still better intellectual reading than most of what's available elsewhere. If you care to read the comments again, you'll notice many of the disagreements with him are on the level of knee-jerk emotional reactions and not well reasoned criticism. However, it's true that he's turned/turning into some gigantic obnoxious ego whose ideas are beginning to look like wild gambles (speaking more often than he substantiates.) He's definitely intelligent and I would say a genius, but in each book it's like: 10% great ideas, 30% very interesting intuitions, 30% vitriolic anger at people/institutions/ideas, 30% broken ideas/intuitions. But all is sold as the truth (tm). If you wish to increase the quality of what you read you could use Taleb's own heuristic: when a book has existed for a thousand years it will exist for a thousand more. Time is a great arbiter for importance. My point is that you either hazard a guess on which of his ideas are powerful, or you wait until the dust settles and somebody else has done this work for you.

avenger123 13y ago
+1 for this. Your comment is definitely the most reasonable in this discussion. I'll likely read his Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan at some point.

eruditely 13y ago

Sigh. If you read his books or papers or see a lecture or the technical companions, you will see that the case against him is vastly overstated. It's like how social justice people probably view PG right now. He is pretty reasonable and I love seeing him accused of all sorts of things here when it's obviously vastly overstated. He lives for trolling the try-hard crew found here. Do you seriously think he is advocating the absolute abolition of std deviation inquisition style?

arjie 13y ago

You should be aware that HN and other online comment forums often have 'negative' posts. Comments that attempt to show up the author of a linked article are a kind of intellectual one-upmanship that is common on Reddit/HN/etc. I haven't read Nassim Taleb's work either, but comment forums like HN are a poor place to get an idea of the quality of someone's work unless they have clear and substantial criticisms. You're usually better off getting your reviews elsewhere.