4 ms·

It's kind of offtopic, but I can't help feeling a bit relieved that I'm not the only one who read this highly recommended book and got increasingly confused how

by Udo 12y ago

It's kind of offtopic, but I can't help feeling a bit relieved that I'm not the only one who read this highly recommended book and got increasingly confused how this heap of triviality and self-congratulation managed to be so successful. Taleb certainly out-gladwelled the other contenders in this category. I am convinced the success of this book can't be due to completely organic factors (at least that's what I hope), but it's here now and however derivative and trite Taleb's contributions to the subject matter might be, he managed to claim ownership for the entire field. The result is it becomes impossible to publicly talk about robustness and fault tolerance without invoking him. If you as an author steer around him, someone from your audience will bring it up and it will be much worse than if you had included the mandatory nod in his direction right from the start. The book has also managed to create a somewhat fertile ground for the subject in lay people and it seems wasteful not to capitalize on that basis when addressing a group of people. So yes, I expect this book will be referenced as the gold standard for the rest of our lifetime.

api 12y ago
I too have had this impression. For a long time I've been very curious about how this kind of king-making occurs and what the underlying political machinery looks like. I don't buy that it's random or organic. Being a middle class hick from the American Midwest and having attended a regular-tier non-coastal school, it's a bit outside my domain... though I did live in Boston for a while and work a lot around the MIT/Harvard orbit. That gave me a definite sense that there's a caste system at work but not exactly how it works or how one goes about gaining entry (or is tapped for entry). Being admitted to the Right School seems to usually be a prerequisite, though there are exceptions. I'm not saying Taleb is a fool. He's certainly very interesting, but he's not the only thinker in this field by any stretch of the imagination. People have been talking about this stuff since back in the 60s when it was called cybernetics. Then they called it complexity, dynamical systems, evolvable systems, and so forth. Taleb might have added some things, but he did not found the field any more than Stephen Wolfram founded the study of cellular automata. I'm not comparing Wolfram and Taleb. Actually I think they're opposites. Wolfram has a lot of money and a big ego (probably bigger than Taleb's), and he certainly is very smart, but his work doesn't seem to have received the nod of the establishment while Taleb's obviously has. Wolfram is more like a tycoon trying to buy his way into a circle that... well... <sniff sniff>... those who are truly in the club would never stoop that low. Who makes these decisions? If you look at Taleb's background, he certainly has gone through or at least been affiliated with all the right schools. The top-tier (Ivy League if you're in the USA) academic network is (in my opinion) the most powerful aristocratic network in the modern world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Academic_career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Academic_... I think what fascinates me the most about the aristocratic networks that run through the top-tier universities and their corporate and governmental orbits is how silent they are. You can make kings with millions in paid PR too, but that's noisy and conveys at least some impression that the PR is indeed being "driven." The real power networks of society seem able to make kings with a wink and a nod and it looks completely organic, often giving the impression that these individuals rose to prominence on pure merit and hard work. Again not saying these individuals don't have merit or that they don't work hard-- I'm sure they do both. But so do millions and millions of other people, and they never get the kind of success the "tapped" or "knighted" see. P. S. You'd probably find Peter Thiel interesting. He's known for being a skeptic of the whole "fooled by randomness" line of thinking. Search for his name on YouTube and select ">20 minutes" length and you can find many interesting talks. I'm looking forward to his book: http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804... I don't always agree with Thiel, but even when I don't he's one of those people who always makes me think.
- Udo 12y ago
  > I suppose random king-making could be an example of just the kind of black swan events he talks about. I feel reminded of the George RR Martin quote that "chaos is a ladder". I don't think the rise of Antifragile is a truly chaotic event though, it's largely due to whatever the opposite of the Black Swan idea should be called. I guess the words to use would be planning and brute force... > Is it really organic? I'm skeptical of that. I suppose it's possible... Initially, these things are probably orchestrated by influential PR connections. It can't be entirely predetermined, but I guess some careful research was done to map out the pop-intellectual vacuum where this book was going to position itself. What really put me off was the arrogance with which he casually claims to be the first one to understand what would have to be pretty old concepts in chaos theory, risk management, and engineering. However, I think it's also a clue that he knew exactly what area he was going to successfully claim ownership of. My guess is this book was helped along massively from the outside, but how ever that came to be, at some point the critical mass was reached anyway. By now it doesn't really matter anymore except to a few of us (including me) who bemusedly like to analyze how things are expertly steered by powerful forces. The point is, no matter what my personal feelings about the book and its heritage, it's now the reference everybody has to use when addressing a whole slew of things. Which makes it required reading. Which perpetuates its authority.
  - api 12y ago
    Yeah, this sort of "takeover of a field" infuriates a lot of people. I know Wolfram got a ton of flak for implying in A New Kind of Science that he basically invented the study of CAs. He didn't. Like I said: what Taleb is talking about was talked about under the name "cybernetics" in the 60s and "complexity" or "chaos theory" in the 90s. It was a major field of interest for me when I was a student, and the more I think back on it the less I think "antifragile" is anything more than a vapid neologism for ideas that have already been out there. Here's some rough synonyms for antifragile from days gone by: autoadaptive, evolvable, autoconstructive, chaordic, etc. I think autoadaptive is the closest, basically a perfect synonym.
    - Udo 12y ago
eruditely 12y ago
What did you even manage to say? I've been waiting for a legitimate critique of him for a long time. There's hardly ever been one. All anyone manages to say is the same inflammatory garbage. Why not hit the technical papers and get straight to it? Oh wait. Because then, you would have to fight some combination of Doudy and his esteemed co-authors. Which are many.
- Udo 12y ago
  I think within the context of civilized discussion your style borders on abuse. Do you really expect people to engage with you after comments like this or are you just letting off steam? Clearly you have supporters, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. However, are karma points enough for you? If not, you should tone down your insults somewhat.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    > I think within the context of civilized discussion your style borders on abuse. I don't have a dog in this fight, but you're replying to this comment in a thread that contains a literal unsourced accusation that Taleb was a "hack". In fact, you replied to that comment. Where was your sense of propriety about the level of discourse expected on HN at that time? On that note, is "out-Gladwelling" someone intended to be civilized or insulting to Gladwell? eruditely's comment was certainly abrasive, but I don't see how it was substantially different from other such "unparliamentary" language on this thread.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      Well, the thing is Gladwell and Taleb are neither on HN, nor on this discussion. So one can be a little tactless against them. Not that describing a writer as a "hack" or his book as "out-Gladwelling" was intended as an actual insult anyway. It's just a blantky put negative accessment of the nature/quality of their work.
- graeme 12y ago
  I agree with what you say, but you could have worded it less insultingly. I suspect it would be more persuasive. In any cases, such comments don't really fit with the tone of Hacker News.
RachelF 12y ago
Taleb's earlier "Fooled by randomness" is one of the few books that changed my life. However, Antifragile was not a good book. Taleb is too angry now, his ego too big and the ideas are not new. For something to be anti-fragile, on needs selection and evolution, or at least non catastrophic failure and then the possibility of feedback.

by Udo 12y ago

api 12y ago

I too have had this impression. For a long time I've been very curious about how this kind of king-making occurs and what the underlying political machinery looks like. I don't buy that it's random or organic. Being a middle class hick from the American Midwest and having attended a regular-tier non-coastal school, it's a bit outside my domain... though I did live in Boston for a while and work a lot around the MIT/Harvard orbit. That gave me a definite sense that there's a caste system at work but not exactly how it works or how one goes about gaining entry (or is tapped for entry). Being admitted to the Right School seems to usually be a prerequisite, though there are exceptions. I'm not saying Taleb is a fool. He's certainly very interesting, but he's not the only thinker in this field by any stretch of the imagination. People have been talking about this stuff since back in the 60s when it was called cybernetics. Then they called it complexity, dynamical systems, evolvable systems, and so forth. Taleb might have added some things, but he did not found the field any more than Stephen Wolfram founded the study of cellular automata. I'm not comparing Wolfram and Taleb. Actually I think they're opposites. Wolfram has a lot of money and a big ego (probably bigger than Taleb's), and he certainly is very smart, but his work doesn't seem to have received the nod of the establishment while Taleb's obviously has. Wolfram is more like a tycoon trying to buy his way into a circle that... well... <sniff sniff>... those who are truly in the club would never stoop that low. Who makes these decisions? If you look at Taleb's background, he certainly has gone through or at least been affiliated with all the right schools. The top-tier (Ivy League if you're in the USA) academic network is (in my opinion) the most powerful aristocratic network in the modern world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Academic_career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Academic_... I think what fascinates me the most about the aristocratic networks that run through the top-tier universities and their corporate and governmental orbits is how silent they are. You can make kings with millions in paid PR too, but that's noisy and conveys at least some impression that the PR is indeed being "driven." The real power networks of society seem able to make kings with a wink and a nod and it looks completely organic, often giving the impression that these individuals rose to prominence on pure merit and hard work. Again not saying these individuals don't have merit or that they don't work hard-- I'm sure they do both. But so do millions and millions of other people, and they never get the kind of success the "tapped" or "knighted" see. P. S. You'd probably find Peter Thiel interesting. He's known for being a skeptic of the whole "fooled by randomness" line of thinking. Search for his name on YouTube and select ">20 minutes" length and you can find many interesting talks. I'm looking forward to his book: http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804... I don't always agree with Thiel, but even when I don't he's one of those people who always makes me think.

Udo 12y ago
> I suppose random king-making could be an example of just the kind of black swan events he talks about. I feel reminded of the George RR Martin quote that "chaos is a ladder". I don't think the rise of Antifragile is a truly chaotic event though, it's largely due to whatever the opposite of the Black Swan idea should be called. I guess the words to use would be planning and brute force... > Is it really organic? I'm skeptical of that. I suppose it's possible... Initially, these things are probably orchestrated by influential PR connections. It can't be entirely predetermined, but I guess some careful research was done to map out the pop-intellectual vacuum where this book was going to position itself. What really put me off was the arrogance with which he casually claims to be the first one to understand what would have to be pretty old concepts in chaos theory, risk management, and engineering. However, I think it's also a clue that he knew exactly what area he was going to successfully claim ownership of. My guess is this book was helped along massively from the outside, but how ever that came to be, at some point the critical mass was reached anyway. By now it doesn't really matter anymore except to a few of us (including me) who bemusedly like to analyze how things are expertly steered by powerful forces. The point is, no matter what my personal feelings about the book and its heritage, it's now the reference everybody has to use when addressing a whole slew of things. Which makes it required reading. Which perpetuates its authority.
- api 12y ago
  Yeah, this sort of "takeover of a field" infuriates a lot of people. I know Wolfram got a ton of flak for implying in A New Kind of Science that he basically invented the study of CAs. He didn't. Like I said: what Taleb is talking about was talked about under the name "cybernetics" in the 60s and "complexity" or "chaos theory" in the 90s. It was a major field of interest for me when I was a student, and the more I think back on it the less I think "antifragile" is anything more than a vapid neologism for ideas that have already been out there. Here's some rough synonyms for antifragile from days gone by: autoadaptive, evolvable, autoconstructive, chaordic, etc. I think autoadaptive is the closest, basically a perfect synonym.
  - Udo 12y ago

eruditely 12y ago

What did you even manage to say? I've been waiting for a legitimate critique of him for a long time. There's hardly ever been one. All anyone manages to say is the same inflammatory garbage. Why not hit the technical papers and get straight to it? Oh wait. Because then, you would have to fight some combination of Doudy and his esteemed co-authors. Which are many.

Udo 12y ago
I think within the context of civilized discussion your style borders on abuse. Do you really expect people to engage with you after comments like this or are you just letting off steam? Clearly you have supporters, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. However, are karma points enough for you? If not, you should tone down your insults somewhat.
- mpyne 12y ago
  > I think within the context of civilized discussion your style borders on abuse. I don't have a dog in this fight, but you're replying to this comment in a thread that contains a literal unsourced accusation that Taleb was a "hack". In fact, you replied to that comment. Where was your sense of propriety about the level of discourse expected on HN at that time? On that note, is "out-Gladwelling" someone intended to be civilized or insulting to Gladwell? eruditely's comment was certainly abrasive, but I don't see how it was substantially different from other such "unparliamentary" language on this thread.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Well, the thing is Gladwell and Taleb are neither on HN, nor on this discussion. So one can be a little tactless against them. Not that describing a writer as a "hack" or his book as "out-Gladwelling" was intended as an actual insult anyway. It's just a blantky put negative accessment of the nature/quality of their work.
graeme 12y ago
I agree with what you say, but you could have worded it less insultingly. I suspect it would be more persuasive. In any cases, such comments don't really fit with the tone of Hacker News.

RachelF 12y ago

Taleb's earlier "Fooled by randomness" is one of the few books that changed my life. However, Antifragile was not a good book. Taleb is too angry now, his ego too big and the ideas are not new. For something to be anti-fragile, on needs selection and evolution, or at least non catastrophic failure and then the possibility of feedback.