The chapter about minorities ruling majorities was really insightful. He mentioned how if even a small percent of people become anti GMO, then GMOs will die out. A scary thing to keep in mind with the whole "label it" debate that was on here a few days ago.
Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
11–20 of 131 posts
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#12I thoroughly enjoyed his other book, "Anti-Fragile" and even more enjoy his twitter feed. He may be low on humility factor, but him calling out BS is refreshing, esp. the self-proclaimed vanguards of science whose work in science is filled with holes and/or is sparse. Read some of the preview chapters, posted here and twitter feed. Fits very well with his writing style and over all theme. I look forward to read this…
For someone calling out vanguards of science, he's light on science himself. He pulled all his "theories" out of his ass, with no empirical support or mathematical deduction.
Fooled by randomness was nice and all, and Black Swan was OK (if you can read past his arrogance), but now he considers himself a "public intellectual", and treats himself as the class of a Nobel winner when he has no more credentials than any other random day trader
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#13For somebody who wrote 'Fooled by ..' one of my favorite books of all time, he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from self-doubt when it comes to stating his personal hypotheses. I can look past his condescending tone (especially towards the wealthy and 'pseudo' intellectuals), but his certitude in his own ideas -- especially after pressing home the point that we are surrounded by randomness -- tarnishes his punditry…
I agree with this and loved Fooled By Randomness. Taleb clearly thinks a lot about these types of things and usually has very interesting ideas. He also has fun analogies and presents things in a way that makes you think differently (partly because he doesn't state things with a lot of nuance). However, he also comes off as quite arrogant to me with criticism of just about all others in society except for himself for…
https://arxiv.org/a/taleb_n_1.html
If that is pseudo intellectual for you, you are too rich. Lets not forget his success as bond trader and his fund making massive sums of money in market volatility.
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#14For somebody who wrote 'Fooled by ..' one of my favorite books of all time, he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from self-doubt when it comes to stating his personal hypotheses. I can look past his condescending tone (especially towards the wealthy and 'pseudo' intellectuals), but his certitude in his own ideas -- especially after pressing home the point that we are surrounded by randomness -- tarnishes his punditry…
None of his theories are scientific. They're nice mental models to keep of the world, but they certainly don't justify his level of arrogance, especially not towards others who actually follow the scientific process to postulate theories
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#15Here are two Facebook posts from Taleb related to the topic and a ~3 minute video that has the main point. "The establishment composed of journos, BS-Vending talking heads with well-formulated verbs, bureaucrato-cronies, lobbyists-in training, New Yorker-reading semi-intellectuals, image-conscious empty suits, Washington rent-seekers and other "well thinking" members of the vocal elites are not getting the point abou…
Seems like he's gone full ZeroHedge
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with this and loved Fooled By Randomness. Taleb clearly thinks a lot about these types of things and usually has very interesting ideas. He also has fun analogies and presents things in a way that makes you think differently (partly because he doesn't state things with a lot of nuance). However, he also comes off as quite arrogant to me with criticism of just about all others in society except for himself for…
https://arxiv.org/a/taleb_n_1.html If that is pseudo intellectual for you, you are too rich. Lets not forget his success as bond trader and his fund making massive sums of money in market volatility.
His fund lost massive amount of other people's money over the long term. (Guess he didn't have enough skin in the game.)
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#17The chapter about minorities ruling majorities was really insightful. He mentioned how if even a small percent of people become anti GMO, then GMOs will die out. A scary thing to keep in mind with the whole "label it" debate that was on here a few days ago.
And a good way to fight that is to form a stubborn minority that only eats GMO food.
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#18I thoroughly enjoyed his other book, "Anti-Fragile" and even more enjoy his twitter feed. He may be low on humility factor, but him calling out BS is refreshing, esp. the self-proclaimed vanguards of science whose work in science is filled with holes and/or is sparse. Read some of the preview chapters, posted here and twitter feed. Fits very well with his writing style and over all theme. I look forward to read this…
For someone calling out vanguards of science, he's light on science himself. He pulled all his "theories" out of his ass, with no empirical support or mathematical deduction. Fooled by randomness was nice and all, and Black Swan was OK (if you can read past his arrogance), but now he considers himself a "public intellectual", and treats himself as the class of a Nobel winner when he has no more credentials than any o…
well then, tell us how you truly feel...
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#19For somebody who wrote 'Fooled by ..' one of my favorite books of all time, he certainly doesn't seem to suffer from self-doubt when it comes to stating his personal hypotheses. I can look past his condescending tone (especially towards the wealthy and 'pseudo' intellectuals), but his certitude in his own ideas -- especially after pressing home the point that we are surrounded by randomness -- tarnishes his punditry…
None of his theories are scientific. They're nice mental models to keep of the world, but they certainly don't justify his level of arrogance, especially not towards others who actually follow the scientific process to postulate theories
You don't seem to know what scientific means, do you?
Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with this and loved Fooled By Randomness. Taleb clearly thinks a lot about these types of things and usually has very interesting ideas. He also has fun analogies and presents things in a way that makes you think differently (partly because he doesn't state things with a lot of nuance). However, he also comes off as quite arrogant to me with criticism of just about all others in society except for himself for…
https://arxiv.org/a/taleb_n_1.html If that is pseudo intellectual for you, you are too rich. Lets not forget his success as bond trader and his fund making massive sums of money in market volatility.
> The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms)
That article is a prime example of pseudo intellectualism, mostly because he lumps all GMOs in one big bucket, there's no general characteristic yet he and co-authors forces one. No wonder it's "only" on arxiv and hasn't made it anywhere else (look at the endorsers: https://arxiv.org/auth/show-endorsers/1410.5787 )
A rebuttal did however make it into a journal: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v33/n9/full/nbt.3333.html