Qué cuñao es este hombre, aunque me resulta simpático, sobre todo por su desprecio a los autores del mainstream bendecido por el New York Times y compañía, estilo Pinker. Su tendencia a estropear cada afirmación más o menos razonable con una colección de cuñadeces estilo "el levantamiento de pesas hará de ti un hombre, muchacho" cada vez es más acentuada, y este libro carece de una estructura más o menos reconocible, lo que le lleva a repetirse más de la cuenta. Sin embargo, todavía tiene un pase como lectura ligera.
Having read the Black Swan, as one will discover in my other reviews, I wanted to see if Taleb's more recent work was different than the now more dated aforementioned title. I will summarize this book by saying it is probably the best worst book I have read. Why?
The worst aspect concerns the fact that Taleb is either pagan, or clearly has some idolizing of pagans up to and including Roman Emperors. He states at one point that he believes pagans are intellectually superior to those of believers--or actually his exact words are that is "his heuristic." I will grant him believers have not provided a portrait of stunning intellectual prowess as time has progressed but he should know why. As the belief has persisted and grown, it has been subject to the very phenomena he describes as YHSVH was the foremost Black Swan of the last 2,000 …
Having read the Black Swan, as one will discover in my other reviews, I wanted to see if Taleb's more recent work was different than the now more dated aforementioned title. I will summarize this book by saying it is probably the best worst book I have read. Why?
The worst aspect concerns the fact that Taleb is either pagan, or clearly has some idolizing of pagans up to and including Roman Emperors. He states at one point that he believes pagans are intellectually superior to those of believers--or actually his exact words are that is "his heuristic." I will grant him believers have not provided a portrait of stunning intellectual prowess as time has progressed but he should know why. As the belief has persisted and grown, it has been subject to the very phenomena he describes as YHSVH was the foremost Black Swan of the last 2,000 years. As time has progressed, the belief has undergone permutation and has produced some thinkers that are not entirely of the "best stock"--but previous to that, church thinkers were some of the leading intellectuals in art and civilization. The belief then might be best described by both of his proposed models at varying points--both extremeistan and mediocristian.
The best aspect is that this work essentially concludes what the last 2,000 years was basically proving--that love without sacrifice is a form of thievery. If you are not directly "in the game" in such a way as to have something to lose, you are most likely ignorant or a parasite or both. He extends these criticisms to academia and elsewhere in those who work in finance. And again, his conclusions are right--but it is rather like he is operating in the shadow of the realization of the entire Age of Pisces while insinuating he is the Prophet of Truth. Indeed, he IS the Prophet of Truth, but his blindness is selective. I expect he has and is being shaped by the Black Swans of his own life in ways he does not see.
Regardless, in an academic sense, this book has much to offer from a practical view of ethics with a mathematical underpinning. Most of the conclusions here are common sense but one finds the mechanisms of common sense to be at times, counter intuitive to what one might suppose them to be. Taleb assesses these situations from his grasp of risk modeling and taking. Others might model the situations simply through living life.
Many people hate this book because they see Taleb as arrogant. Fine. It is evident that one could make that case. Of course, this same arrogance they quickly attack one can find in spades in the institutions and professions he attacks. Why is it then that people are quick to point out the flaws of Taleb but not these quasi-venerable institutions? It can only be because that something Taleb is saying is correct and it threatens the edifice upon which these institutions rest, arrogant or no. Put simply, none of us like to know the bullshit that fools us because then we must admit that we are fools. Taleb, I suspect, does sense the foolishness in many things, but I wonder if he will ever be able to fully see the foolishness in the endeavor to try to avoid foolishness? To play the game is on some level to sit down at the table across from the fool. Explaining to the fool why the game is foolish will not work for he is, after all, a fool.
My four stars again does not reflect the quality of the writing so much as it concerns my inherent disagreement with some of the thesis advanced. The best analogy I can give is that the rating reflects the story of a hypothetical person who builds houses. This person finds another contractor who also builds houses. His conception and ideas of what a good house looks like are mostly in agreement with the other contractor and in fact are inspirational in some ways. Yet, the discovered contractor has a few conceptions about building houses and the weather that result in the roof of the built house being torn off within a year in all cases. In such a situation, the former contractor cannot flatly endorse the new fellow because some of what he has to say is corrosive to the entire art of building a house. It does not matter how pretty the structure is--if the roof is missing the entire purpose of the house quickly becomes moot.
Yet, sometimes one reads works with which one does not entirely agree. This is often the case in life. The experience in those works and conceptions are valuable given a certain backdrop and given a certain perspective. Mr. Taleb's book is, indeed, in this category.
Nassim is smart but he's such a blow-hard. He constantly says that "person x is not rigorous" and yet he himself doesn't display any of this rigor he values so much.
He says "this is not ergodic..." or "lacks ergodicity" and always adds "we'll define that soon... I'm coming to that..." but he never does.
He has some good ideas, and his general idea for this book, that people should have skin in the game, is probably valid. But it could be argued far more effectively in a far shorter book by a much better writer.
I picked up this book because I thought it would be in the same vein as "Winners Take All" by Anand Giridharadas...but it just wasn't even close. I don't even know how to describe this book. You know that pompous ***clown who corners you at a party droning on and on about his own genius until you seriously consider faking a peanut allergy? It's like if that guy was a book. I mean, forgive me, I'm not an "IYI" (Intellectual Yet Idiot) - I'm just an idiot, so I missed anything that resembled a point he was trying to make. I think I was distracted by the author's seething hatred of intellectuals, people who take his parking space, and - for some reason - Steven Pinker.
And I didn't disagree with everything he said. Yes, journalistic integrity has been sacrificed for the sound bite used to elicit an emotional reaction. …
I picked up this book because I thought it would be in the same vein as "Winners Take All" by Anand Giridharadas...but it just wasn't even close. I don't even know how to describe this book. You know that pompous ***clown who corners you at a party droning on and on about his own genius until you seriously consider faking a peanut allergy? It's like if that guy was a book. I mean, forgive me, I'm not an "IYI" (Intellectual Yet Idiot) - I'm just an idiot, so I missed anything that resembled a point he was trying to make. I think I was distracted by the author's seething hatred of intellectuals, people who take his parking space, and - for some reason - Steven Pinker.
And I didn't disagree with everything he said. Yes, journalistic integrity has been sacrificed for the sound bite used to elicit an emotional reaction. And, yes, too many "experts" come out of their ivory towers to solve a "community problem" without truly being invested in that community (spoiler alert - that never works out). But it was just hard to swallow wrapped up in all that disdain. The author quoted a lot of philosophers in this book, so let me end this review with a quote from my favorite philosopher, the Dude from "The Big Lebowski" - "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole."
