Taleb on Black Swans, Fragility, and Mistakes
econtalk.org
econtalk.org
Taleb’s writings are filled with certainty, anger, and immodesty, having the Godelian impossibility of someone shouting 'I am the most humble!'
Spot on. From http://falkenblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-of-talebs-blac....
Taleb’s style is to severely criticize experts and authorities--lots of 'morons', 'idiots', and 'fools' out there--while implying that both he and his reader or listener are exempt from their many biases.
A third of Fooled By Randomness (published before Black Swan) is about accepting that you are biased, there's nothing you can do about it, your rationality is limited. And then trying to deal with it - accepting your biases in the small and spending your precious rational thinking on the big stuff (e.g. where you invest your money).
I only skimmed the rest of that article, but that was enough to spot at least two other sentences which show that the author didn't really spend time trying to understand Taleb's ideas and is being ticked off by Taleb's irreverence and love of opinionated aphorisms.
It made total sense. However the hoi polloi is in search of a charismatic Messiah who has answer to all questions. And when someone mocks their expectation by presenting statistical evidence, the general argument is how arrogant that person is.
The idea of something can be predicted by using mathematical formulas (F=MA) is extremely attractive, however in Chaos filled practice one finds it more of an exception rather than a rule. The worst part being our inability to choose a proper null model.
Talk about burying the lede.