51–60 of 131 posts
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Except this guy is a known and reputable expert in economics. He's worth listening to unless you fear he may be shorting his readership (joking).
Nitpicking: he's an asset allocation/market expert, not an economics expert. His PhD is in finance, not economics. There's a significant difference.
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I read Fooled and Black Swan and I'm just going to admit it: I don't get it. I mean, I think I understood both books. But can someone explain why they're supposed to be so revelatory? I found them to be... something else. Many, many smart people seem to swear by Fooled. Why? What am I missing?
Fooled by randomness is his best book, but it's probably getting replaced by Robert Frank's book "Success and Luck" on my recommendation list for that topic. It's just a good reminder that you might be luckier than you think and that skill doesn't fully explain the successful achievements. Black Swan is seriously hard to read through; his arrogance is insufferable. The point he's making is fairly self evident; the bo…
For 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 read Fooled and Black Swan and I'm just going to admit it: I don't get it. I mean, I think I understood both books. But can someone explain why they're supposed to be so revelatory? I found them to be... something else. Many, many smart people seem to swear by Fooled. Why? What am I missing?
Am I the only one who doesn't enjoy Taleb's writing style? I find that he tends to use overly complex vocabulary to explain very simple ideas.
When I tried to read Antifragile his style seemed rambling and incoherent, darting back and forth between concepts and obtuse metaphors, like a tirade from the coked-up conspiracy nut at every party. I may need to give it another shot.
I take it you've seen his Twitter then?
For 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 read Fooled and Black Swan and I'm just going to admit it: I don't get it. I mean, I think I understood both books. But can someone explain why they're supposed to be so revelatory? I found them to be... something else. Many, many smart people seem to swear by Fooled. Why? What am I missing?
the thesis is pretty simple: reasoning about randomly distributed events is counter-intuitive and we should not use mathematical models to convince ourselves that low probability/high impact events are somehow mitigated because they disappear in statistics when you smooth out the outliers.
I was just on a flight where peanuts was one of the snack options. (I chose pretzels.)
I 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…
I agree on both points. I really enjoyed reading Antifragile, lots of good concepts and ideas! But his Twitter feed is pretty depressing to read - lots of attacking back and forth.
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Fooled by randomness is his best book, but it's probably getting replaced by Robert Frank's book "Success and Luck" on my recommendation list for that topic. It's just a good reminder that you might be luckier than you think and that skill doesn't fully explain the successful achievements. Black Swan is seriously hard to read through; his arrogance is insufferable. The point he's making is fairly self evident; the bo…
I also found his arrogance in Black Swan insufferable - enough that I lost all taste for his writing. I saw him talk in person in my building when he was promoting Anti-Fragile, and I was also not impressed. Do you still recommend I read Fooled By Randomness?
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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 di…
Nature is "a journal" like the Pyramids are "a stone pile".