Comment by meow1032 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meow1032 | Hacker News Reader

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I can't help but feel that if Taleb put a little more effort into fleshing out his arguments I'd enjoy his writing a lot more.

In most of what I've read from him, it always feels like he's more concerned with trying to make the reader feel smug about understanding his writing than actually trying to communicate anything meaningful. In this article, he has an aside where he complains that Agricultural Companies are running a smear campaign against him and are "idiots" and "naive".

He seems to acknowledge that clearly there is some bound on this "minority rule" argument, but doesn't bother to further explore this, and instead goes on and writes as though no bound exists, or if it does, only exists when it benefits his argument.

You took the words from my mouth. While there is a valid and logical point here, his own asides and proselytising style provide avenues to undermine his argument.

For instance, in many Muslim majority or even major minority countries, you do not have a universally halal food industry - most supermarkets are divided into "stuff (probably halal)" halal, and haram.

If he halved the time and volume he puts into making himself/his readers feel clever, he'd be far more convincing.

I know this because it's something I feel into for years, and still do on my first draft of much that I write.

Yeah. I lived in a city that's close to 20 percent Muslim for a while and ate at a few halal-only takeaways, but even there they were very much in the minority. (There was a fairly good place that not only served only 100% halal food, but also closed during the day during Ramadan, but that's because it was a non-chain outlet owned and run by observant Muslims.) Similarly, at least one of the major chains of budget supermarkets around here has loose peanuts and other nuts and just puts a warning in the window expecting anyone with a nut allergy to shop elsewhere. Most of the disabled people I know would probably have more than a few sharp things to say about his argument that they'd automatically be accommodated everywhere too.

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