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Comment by misiti3780 | Hacker News Reader

I know he doesnt seem to be popular here, but Taleb seems to be one of the most important thinkers of our time. The fact that he is such a dick in public turns a lot of people off but it seems most of his core ideas are salient.

If I like Taleb, who else should be reading?

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HN doesn't like Taleb because he dunks on a demographic particularly prevalent on here: well-educated laymen, or the less charitable 'intellectuals yet idiots'. I'd be lying if I didn't also feel targeted by him but I think it is also a core hacker value to grow thick skin and learn instead of getting offended and whining.

That, and of course he also wrote a take-down of IQ (and psychology in general) that pissed off a lot of IQ-fetishists on here.

He also made a bunch of money, knows a lot of advanced and ultrarigorous (read: French-educated) math and reads in a bunch of languages so even though he's a colossal asshole no one can exactly dismiss him as a hack, so he just kind of sticks there like an annoying wart in the face of "the discourse" that just won't go away. Personally, and in case it wasn't obvious, I sort of like him.

Edit: I forgot to mention he sometimes blocks people who give the wrong answer to the integral solving problems he posts on Twitter. I don't expect you to understand but I really respect that.

Taleb isn't targeting well-educated laymen when he talks of IYIs. He's speaking of intellectuals who are divorced from reality. As he puts it, "No skin in the game", e.g. economists, journalists, forecasters, career academics, social "scientists", etc.

Sure, and how does this not describe out-of-field tech workers and PhD havers pontificating over a bunch of questions where their job and/or reputation isn't on the line? I see plenty of people on here doing it in my field, and a cursory look at my post history will easily show I do the same in others (and with a throwaway account at that). It's just a thing we do, it seems ;-) nothing wrong with that as long as we're aware it's more of a self-indulgence than any kind of intellectual posturing. In that Taleb is useful as he keeps us honest, even if he's an asshole about it.

The only thing that bugs me about him is his take on religion. He claims he is not muslim but on multiple occasions he defends Islam and also he is mildly anti Jewish. He is against Richard Dawkins stating his math is wrong. I could not find the source of the problem that Richard Dawkins made an error in calculating. If somebodycan point out to math problem preferably if the problem is in python notebook for verification,that would be great

He's Orthodox Christian [1], but he defends all peaceful religious practice against the attacks from celebrity atheists like Dawkins and Sam Harris. But he also attacks violent religious extremists like Wahabis. I don't know about him being anti-Jewish. That doesn't sound right to me. Can you point to anything?

I also don't know about him attacking Dawkins' math; I don't know of any significant math Dawkins has ever published. You may be referring to Taleb's defence of E.O. Wilson, Nowak et al [2], which was attacked by Dawkins and Steven Pinker, without disproving the math in the paper, which Taleb claims to have verified.

[1] https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1177630356327075841

[2] https://www.facebook.com/nntaleb/posts/eo-wilson-nowak-et-al...

NNT is the ultimate intellectual yet horribly idiot, its all-in on Chloroquine with fancy math, which appeared the tool for dictators to force the poor mass to continue taking risks for them, was an ungrounded effort, he only have been swindled by Raoult another UIYI like him. Also there is nobody with less skin on himself as NNT, he blocks everybody that disagree with him, and carefully cultivate replies of yes-men, and cultist, who are ridiculous stans.

When it comes to finance - I recommend anything that's "long convexity". For example papers by Artemis, the 100 years portfolio is quite good https://www.artemiscm.com/welcome

Then I'd say reading history and trying to imagine how those people thought like. I think Taleb is basically a historian that happened to trade a lot of options in his past life. I like Robert Shiller's idea of "moving back in time", where you read today's NYTimes daily but from say, 1925, instead of 2020.

I try to understand Taleb better by reading what he reads. He is very active on Amazon reviewing books:

https://www.amazon.com/Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb/e/B000APVZ7W

https://www.thewaystowealth.com/nassim-taleb-reading-list/

thanks for this -- in antifagile he mentions how he reads 30-60 hours every week. assuming that is true, he must be reading hundreds of books a year.

He has all the f u money he needs, no day job, genuine curiosity, there is no need to doubt it. His intellectual curiosity is so refreshing when almost everybody reads books to signal something.

Other people read books to signal, but Talib has enough cloud to just say shit instead of signaling. Arguably, this is why he has the reputation of being a jerk or putting his foot in his mouth.

That link didn't work for me. This one did though:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AHMHNR4MRTDL...

indeed that's the correct one. I mistakenly copy pasted things from browser history without loading the page. sorry about that & thanks for correcting it

>Taleb seems to be one of the most important thinkers of our time.

Considering basically nothing he talks about is a thought original to him, I can't say I agree. He's good at popularizing things with the general public that were already well known within specialist circles, though.

He's also quite spotty on a bunch of science related subjects, including GMOs

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

Yeah. Nassim has some great if somewhat obvious points but his take on GMOs is weak. Any technology, from fire to GMOs, can be beneficial or abused. His insistence that we should not be playing around with genes at all because we are completely over our head is silly.

We have always been over our head. And you don't have to be a "Monsanto shill" to realize that.

He's very trigger happy with the block button, which ironically limits his exposure to contrarian views and likely makes his ideas less anti-fragile in the long run.

I think im confused, what exactly is wrong with this take on GMOs: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/nassim-taleb-fi...

From everything I have read about Monsanto (none of it from Taleb), they are a pretty shitty, unethical company. They have ruined the lives of farmer in many places inside and out outside the US. I mean, round up is illegal in the EU.

His issue with GMOs, as I understand it, is mother nature "developed" and evolved these crops over a long period of time, and we should not trust a few IYI scientists at Monsanto, etc to play with that evolution via genetic manipulation.

Monsanto uses GMOs. GMOs are not equivalent to Monsanto.

There are many many examples of GMO foods that we all eat every day that are not related to the genetic modification done to make plants able to handle having roundup sprayed on them. I had some papayas over the weekend - something like 4/5ths of all papayas in the US are GMO because the ringspot virus nearly wiped them out prior to scientists genetically modifying them.

Taleb basically sticks his head in the sand and acts like Monsanto is the only game in town when it comes to GMOs and thinks that it is too dangerous for us to do at all.

Yes, exactly. There is plenty of room to criticize Monsanto without demonizing the idea of gene editing.

The linked article is a damning indictment of Taleb's statements on GMOs. Just read some of the specific criticisms at the bottom.

> mother nature "developed" and evolved these crops over a long period of time, and we should not trust a few IYI scientists at Monsanto, etc to play with that evolution via genetic manipulation

We evolved sleeping on the earth, but very few treat that as an argument against beds.

Also almost all crops have undergone a breeding program which is alters genes far more and less precisely than gene editing.

According to the book "Poison Spring: Secret History of Pollution and EPA," GMOs are primarily developed in order to genetically engineer crops that are able to withstand chemical herbicides and pesticides: "Glyphosate is a powerful driver of genetic engineering. Its creator, Monsanto, has bioengineered 'Roundup Ready' soybeans, corn and other crops to resist Roundup's killing power" (p. 205)... "All genetically modified crops harm the natural world and human health, in large part because they (by definition) invite and encourage the spraying of toxic pesticides" (p. 212). Quoted from E.G. Vallianatos (2014) Poison Spring: Secret History of Pollution and EPA https://www.amazon.com/Poison-Spring-Secret-History-Pollutio...

> A 2014 meta-analysis concluded that GM technology adoption had reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops

> All genetically modified crops harm the natural world and human health, in large part because they (by definition) invite and encourage the spraying of toxic pesticides

That is a flagrant abuse of the phrase "by definition"! Who is Vallianatos and on what basis does he make these claims? I looked him up and found that he has a BA in zoology and a doctorate in history, so I'd be keen to look at original sources rather than treat him as an expert.

Is being original the key criteria for being important?

For being "one of the most important thinkers in our time", I would argue it needs to be relatively original thought.

He's obviously important in general - I just think there's probably a better label thank thinker. Evangelist, maybe?

One thing I both like and dislike about Taleb is his habit of "name dropping". In his earlier works (e.g. Fooled by Randomness) this was great as it produced a wonderful reading list (e.g. try Popper, it's far more accessible than I expected). In his later works, I find it fairly unpleasant.

But Read (or re-read) Fooled by Randomness with a notepad handy and note down any author he recommends and that should answer your question.

It’s not that he’s a dick, but he just seems to rename a lot of pretty standard psychology and economic phenomena with his own terminology, then speaks as though he was the first one to think of it. Giving the illusion that he’s some sort of lone genius rather than someone who can synthesize a lot of information very well ingratiates himself to a certain kind of asshole who are perfectly happy to talk condescendingly to you while parroting Taleb’s opinions exactly.

You haven't read many tech blogs, have you?

Probably John Gray more than anyone. Taleb seems to be quite fond of him.

Also, here is a list of authors Taleb himself considers to be, in classic Taleb fashion, "non BS vendors":

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1231560522157494279

He’s an asshole but I wish I could understand anything he wrote. He seems to take pleasure in demonstrating how much more clever than anyone else he is, and that shows in his books: sentences are long and convoluted. I wish there was a dumbed down version of his books just so that I could make up my own mind about his ideas but alas.

> The fact that he is such a dick in public

I wonder about this aspect of his personality. For instance, if I knew gravity = 9.8 m/s^2 and everyone around me still thought the earth was flat, would the daily interactions with people start to grate on me? Probably.

Of course, if I really thought I knew, but was wrong, then I'd just be an idiot & a jerk.

Seriously though, what if he's completely right about something that other people don't see? Then is he really being a dick, or is everyone else being one for calling him that and not seeing the same answers he sees?

It's got to be hard to know something that nobody else does and still be patient with everyone while they question you incessantly.

A good proxy for me is being a parent and trying to explain something for the umpteenth time to my kid - it get frustrating at times.

> if I knew gravity = 9.8 m/s^2 and everyone around me still thought the earth was flat, would the daily interactions with people start to grate on me?

If you have a decent amount of humility and good will, I honestly think you'd settle into working on finding the best way to communicate your ideas without belittling people.

I agree, hence my comment about working with kids - at some point, explaining things gets exhausting.

The great things about kids is that they grow, and you are explaining new things to them over the years, not the same thing for 20 years.

EDIT - just to clarify my original comment, I was not excusing his behavior - only pondering the source of it.

I think it's very different. When you're a parent explaining something to a kid, you are responsible for their life and actions. You can't just take a few hours/days out to formulate your response or decide this person isn't worth your time. Taleb can. Also, you are evidently more competent at dealing with life than they are, whereas it's unclear in cases I've looked at whether Taleb is more insightful or competent than people he's called an "imbecile". How is the layman supposed to measure whether he really know what he's talking about? His poor writing skills and attitude give off quite a strong impression that he's not secure in his knowledge.

Rory Sutherland - Alchemy

Ole Peters work on ergodocity

Paul Skallas / "Lindy Table" on Twitter

Yudkowsky, especially his sequences at lesswrong.com

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