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Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

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Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#81

Post by mikeyouse »

dagw wrote: post #28
MagnumOpus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His fund lost massive amount of other people's money over the long term. (Guess he didn't have enough skin in the game.)

Where are you getting those numbers from? The most reliable numbers I could find where in this WSJ article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118429436433665637 which claims that while his fund may have under-performed other funds over its lifetime and suffered a couple of years of modest losses during a period of stable growth, it did make massive returns during the dot.com crash which was kind of the funds raison d'etr…

Only LPs have true access to fund returns but there are a lot of examples of falsehoods being claimed by Taleb et al;

http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-nas...

Plus the fact that he started an new fund in 2009 that essentially was relying on hyperinflation to make their returns;

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124380234786770027#mod=testMod

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#82

Post by api_or_ipa »

chad_strategic wrote: post #75

I look forward to reading his book. His writing style is good but not great. I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc... From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS. We need more people to call others out on their BS. (US elections, MSM, cnbc, Mosanto, wall street...) Anybody that open comes out and says Saudi Ara…

his facebook page is not to be missed either. One of the main reasons why I still occasionally check facebook.

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#83

Post by pitt1980 »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #16
sremani wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

I suspect people who've read Talib make a lot of money in prediction markets this year from people who just read Nate Silver

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#84

Post by bduerst »

VodkaHaze wrote: post #77
blub wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What so you think of this one star review of success and luck (from Aaron): http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/0691167400/?filterByStar=one_... I did not analyze it carefully, but he tears the book to bits.

It's a legitimate criticism, but he's arguing a strawman. First off, the reviewer's coinflip analogy is deeply flawed. If you take a million draws from a binomial distribution, it's not going to end up the same as a million draws from an exponential distribution. That has an even deeper meaning when you, as an individual, are one random draw from said distribution, especially if you want to live in a society that con…

Okay, so I haven't read the book but I read the scathing review - and I think your rebuttal isn't quite fair.

You started to address the review but switched to ad hom attacks to discredit the reviewer - when in reality the reviewer is a past financial professor who works in risk management, and makes some very salient points about the logic behind the books claims.

Even what you say about sampling binomial vs. exponential populations isn't quite relevant, because as a coin or a person, you're not going to be switching between such distributions when sampling.

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#85

Post by [deleted] »

mayukh wrote: post #4

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…

[deleted]

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#86

Post by darawk »

VodkaHaze wrote: post #14
mayukh wrote: post #4

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…

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

His theories are largely a rejection of placing too much faith in the scientific method (without rejecting it entirely, of course). The essence of his entire philosophy is that naive empiricism causes you to ignore things that happen rarely, and the more you build the assumption that rare events do not happen into your models, the more it hurts when they do happen.

This is, by definition, a hypothesis that is both obviously true and also almost impossible to test. The very problem in question is that there is a fundamental lack of data on these rare events because they happen rarely.

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#87

Post by bduerst »

ikeboy wrote: post #35
Houshalter wrote: post #11

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.

That only works if GMOs don't have a significant advantage over non GMOs. And if they don't (in terms of price, properties, etc) then there's really not much point to them, no reason to get excited.

Assuming that public policy is based on merit, and that consumers can make critical decisions free of bias.

One has only to look at the new exemptions for vaccinations to see that this clearly isn't true, and has modern-day repercussions.

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#88

Post by haberman »

sremani wrote: post #13
gopher2 wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

He is involved in a long-standing feud with Steven Pinker which basically goes like this:

Pinker: Descriptively, there is less violence in the world today than at any time in recorded human history.

Taleb: How can you claim that we are in a "Long Peace"? There could be a huge terrorist attack tomorrow!

Pinker: I'm not making predictions, I am describing the world as it currently is. The "Long Peace" is a term used by historians to describe post-1945, not a predictive one to describe what will happen in the future.

Taleb: Violence is fat-tailed, nuclear bombs could kill millions of people instantly tomorrow, if you say violence is down you are statistically incompetent. See for example: https://www.facebook.com/13012333374/posts/10151641931853375

According to Taleb, a descriptive book of hundreds of pages of data is insufficient conclusion to say, descriptively, that violence is lower than in the past.

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#89

Post by cjbenedikt »

mikeyouse wrote: post #81
dagw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting those numbers from? The most reliable numbers I could find where in this WSJ article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118429436433665637 which claims that while his fund may have under-performed other funds over its lifetime and suffered a couple of years of modest losses during a period of stable growth, it did make massive returns during the dot.com crash which was kind of the funds raison d'etr…

Only LPs have true access to fund returns but there are a lot of examples of falsehoods being claimed by Taleb et al; http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-nas... Plus the fact that he started an new fund in 2009 that essentially was relying on hyperinflation to make their returns; http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124380234786770027#mod=testMod

It is actually not Taleb's fund but Mark Spitznagel's an it is doing phenominally well

Re: Skin in the Game – chapter drafts by Nassim Taleb

#90

Post by [deleted] »

mikeyouse wrote: post #81
dagw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting those numbers from? The most reliable numbers I could find where in this WSJ article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118429436433665637 which claims that while his fund may have under-performed other funds over its lifetime and suffered a couple of years of modest losses during a period of stable growth, it did make massive returns during the dot.com crash which was kind of the funds raison d'etr…

Only LPs have true access to fund returns but there are a lot of examples of falsehoods being claimed by Taleb et al; http://www.businessinsider.com/wait-before-you-invest-in-nas... Plus the fact that he started an new fund in 2009 that essentially was relying on hyperinflation to make their returns; http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124380234786770027#mod=testMod

[deleted]
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