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Has anyone read anything by Nassim Nicholas Taleb?

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nicola
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It's not erotic (unless you get off on obscure things), but has anyone read any of his work? I read an interesting article about him in the broadsheets this weekend.

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
nicola
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I guess we only get erotica readers in here
Guest
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Did he play drums for Uriah Heep? Just kidding. No, I don't know him.
C_R_R_Crawford
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Quote by nicola
It's not erotic (unless you get off on obscure things), but has anyone read any of his work? I read an interesting article about him in the broadsheets this weekend.

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/


I recently read Antifragile which I'd recommend. His style is convoluted and he is clearly arrogant, but he has some original and powerful insights. Did you end up reading any of his work?
Unknown User
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Quote by nicola
It's not erotic (unless you get off on obscure things), but has anyone read any of his work? I read an interesting article about him in the broadsheets this weekend.

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/




Hi, Nicola.

Only just seen this.

Strangely enough, at the moment I’m halfway through his The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

Although written in 2008, it is interesting to read in light of the current pandemic (the opinions of clueless experts who by lack of foresight and incompetence have led to the Covid debacle).

As a long-time collector of books, with shelves and shelves of volumes yet to be read, I was lured into reading this title after peeking at the Amazon “look inside” preview (below). I can’t remember why I was even looking, though. I read his Skin in the Game last year, and although an absorbing read, I can remember very little about it now — other than him having a go at people who make decisions for us all without fear of consequences for themselves. i.e., having no “skin in the game”.

Anyhow, the bit that drew to read him again is below. Quite cool, in my opinion.

“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others—a very small minority—who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”
The Black Swan (pp. xxxiii-1). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

I’m working my way through the book in small bites. Not exactly a gripping read (for me, that is), but I will persevere.


I do like his arrogance, his having no respect for so-called “experts”, economists, politicians, bankers, journalists.



I keep meaning to go to his blog and check out his take on the current debacle.
PervyStoryteller
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Yes, I read Black Swan, a good few years ago now and found it an interesting read. Enough at least to have other books of his on my very long list that I haven't got round to investing in/borrowing (so not "godlike-genius-interesting").

But, yes, there's stuff there that gets the cogs whirring and, to my mind at least, he's a lucid enough thinker. I didn't find the book particularly difficult, nor did I find Taleb arrogant, though having educated myself through reading a succession of English aristocrats, it's entirely possible that what others define as arrogance, I merely think of as jocular sarcasm.
LakeShoreLimited
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He has interesting ideas but he needs a stronger editor. He tends to ramble on too much. His Black Swan book could be about a third shorter than it's present form.
Rally
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I read Fooled By Randomness, most of it anyway, and on the basis of that decided not to read his Black Swan. His writing seemed self-absorbed and unfocused and I didn’t have the patience to indulge the rambling.
MC1982
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Yes. I read 'The Black Swan'. I agree with LakeShoreLimited. I found the overall ideas interesting, but I thought it was far too long and rambling.

CommsGuy
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I haven't, I am an avid reader though, would you recommend him?