For this thread I have one thing. To the negative mentions of Taleb, I ask for you to judge FOR YOURSELF in his entirety the man's character for it is misrepres

For this thread I have one thing. To the negative mentions of Taleb, I ask for you to judge FOR YOURSELF in his entirety the man's character for it is misrepresented a lot. Just like Graham in valleywag. tl;dr A lot of his work is dismissed by high-tier to the bottom to middle of the top tier intellectuals, but if you note his contact with top top tier, it is well received. The bottom to middle of the top tier being people Less Wrong type people who read Kahneman, whereas Taleb actually knows and is friends with Kahneman, knew Mandrelbrot etc etc. "It's weird. Just last night, actually, in bed, Jessica was saying, "Why does everybody hate us so much? Why is everyone trying to attack us?" I explained that reputation is potential energy." - Graham's essay response to women in tech incident. It's like the people of the online community want only one personality type, passive, ultra-kind etc etc. Taleb just isn't like that. You can disagree with him/some of the things he says and still appreciate his place in the intellectual sphere of today and history. It's like at a family wedding where two brothers just get mad at each other, but it's not 'hate'. It's just 'oh you guys'. If you had to say modern intellectual discourse as Light side vs Dark side. Taleb is the "Thug side", but don't let the contrarian-chic of HN let you be fooled, he actually has legitimate substance and IS relevant. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/mandelbrotandhudson.pdf http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/mandelbrotandhudson.pdf , an essay by him dedicated to Mandrelbrot. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/DerivTBS.htm http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/DerivTBS.htm >- Technical work dedicated to his ideas. If he's good enough for Kahneman, his idea's relevant enough for Terrence Tao. How come the oh contraire crowd here dismisses him so lightly(?) http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm , there's a lot to him. The way I see randoms talk about Graham & Taleb really colored the way I see public individuals. If you're public, they'll try to character assassinate you as best as possible.