Taleb's "The Black Swan"

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Finished it recently. Awesome. Possibly the best non-fiction book I've ever read. I assume there'll be an old thread on it somewhere, but I'm hopeless at searching the OTF archive.

[rick derris]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I am reading it at the moment. Is indeed very good

[Tubby Isaacs]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I think I posted on it before. I'm not a mathematician, so interested to see what EEG says. I thought it was the same thing, about a hundred times.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I'm far from an expert (so far at least, give me a few years perhaps), but the mathematical points about data distribution struck me as very convincing. His basic point that economic statisticians and modellers frequently assume "Gaussian" or normal distribution in areas where it does not reflect the real world in any meaningful way whatever is a powerful one, and his data about the incontestably hopeless record of economic forecasters are both convincing and simultaneously depressing and amusing.

It's possible that my natural cynicism about economics and economists makes me naturally pre-disposed to believe Taleb's thesis that the vast majority of them are peddling dishonest and useless bullshit with zero predictive value.

And yes, I agree he is somewhat repetitive, though I think that is very often the case with "big picture, key point" books - Jared Diamond was worse for example in "Guns Germs and Steel", and less entertaining in the process.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

You'd like Dan Gardner's Future Babble book. Not repetitive at all.

[Hofzinser]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I haven't read the Black Swan, but I have read Taleb's previous book, 'Fooled By Randomness'. It's mostly very good, and provides some excellent food for thought. However, I find it difficult to get over the fact that Taleb himself always comes over as a self-regarding, pompous arse. I find him quite irritating to read because of it, even though this aspect may only crop up once every few pages or so. It's put me off reading Black Swan or any of his other stuff despite basically enjoying 'Fooled By Randomness'.

I think he has some quite interesting things to say; I just wish he was able to say it with a bit more humility and humour.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I can see that too. He did indeed strike me as very full of himself indeed in "The Black Swan". I suppose I was willing to overlook that because he was attacking privileged targets and being pretty entertaining and original in the process.

[Edie St Pierre]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

What I have read has intrigued me enough to get a second-hand copy off amazon, so cheers for the book recommendation, EEG.

[Torcida]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

If you like The Black Swan, read Mandelbrot, who Taleb nicked all his ideas from. To be fair to Taleb he does acknowledge this.

[MsD]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

I'm curious, as NNT is being ridiculed on social media for his opinions on GMO.

Does anyone have any thoughts here? I'm not going to wade into the argument at all but as all I'm seeing has a strong bias, I don't know what to think.

I don't have a background in physical sciences, I'm an environmentalist out of concern for humankind and other species; I'm not anti-pharma/GMO if they can help and not harm. Greenpeace, an organisation I respect, is anti-GMO; the UN seems to think they can solve world food problems. On the other hand, like many people I'm suspicious of Monsanto and big pharma because of their profit motive. The main problems with food security seem to be distribution / choice of cash crops etc., which would not go away with GMO.

Is he right on the economy, wrong on science?

I would just like to know people's opinions, if they have any.

[mayfly191]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

He's good at arguing but I disagreed with the central premise that 9/11, World War I or the economic collapse were unpredictable. A few had been talking of events quite like them.

[WOM]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

Which of the three were predictable in foresight (as opposed to retrospectively)? I mean, the sub-prime mortgage debacle, for sure, but more the first two.

[mayfly191]

Taleb's "The Black Swan"

International terrorism had been growing for years, hardly a secret about that, and the bomb on the WTC in 1993 was planned to demolish the towers so it was known as a target.

To be fair, I can't remember what Taleb said about World War One, but it was predicted that contemporary means of warfare between advanced nations with modern weapons would lead to a stalemate with mass casualties. This was ignored by the generals, of course (this is a good read on this http://www.historytoday.com/paul-rey...cted-great-war)

[Incandenza]

I had never heard of him before he started acting like an ass on Twitter, and I know there are arguments for not letting an author's social media influence what you think of their books, but Jesus, I couldn't read one of his books and not think of something like this:

[Lang Spoon]

What a Wally. He seems one of the most horrible arrogant wanks going on Twitter, and that’s saying something.

What’s wrong with red wine with a steak?

[Lang Spoon]

Is he recommending John Gray as a great thinker? Hahahahaha

[Lang Spoon]

And he’s a gym bunny. But of course.

[Incandenza]

Two gentleman scholars, prepared to enter combat...OF THE MIND

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/989986059604955136

[Lang Spoon]

Ouch! Bros and their burns.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yes, the guy is clearly a dick.

What insights are to be gained from persisting with the book?

Five years on from reading the book, I think the main points I recall from it are the following:

1. There's a lot of spurious and misleading stuff in the social sciences (including economics), where ostensibly highly sophisticated theoretical analysis is not worth the paper it's written on because the underlying assumptions are dodgy.

2. The influence of the spurious stuff is defended by groupthink in the world of academia.

3. Most output of professional economists in particular is bollocks, and there's plenty of evidence for that in the utterly hopeless record of economists collectively worldwide across the history of their field in successfully predicting anything meaningful about future economic trends that wasn't just as easily predicted by laymen.

4. One common cause of error in the ostensibly sophisticated and clever modelling is the assumption, on no reasonable basis, that the phenomena under review necessarily have a Gaussian distribution. An assumption made because Gaussian distributions are common in physical science and hence a lot of complex maths around them is widely known and easily accessible.

Edit: sorry, that list omits the obvious larger point, the main theme of the book, which is that people underestimate the risk of absolutely exceptional events (the so-called "black swan"). I recall him mentioning the case of the turkey fattened on the farm by regular feeding, concluding from the evidence it has garnered over the course of 999 days that its human keepers are a benevolent force. On day 1000 the turkey gets a surprise.

[Lang Spoon]

Which doesn’t explain why he’s become such a GMO belligerent. He’s wanting something banned on the precautionary principle rather than any evidence.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Most output of professional economists in particular is bollocks, and there's plenty of evidence for that in the utterly hopeless record of economists collectively worldwide across the history of their field in successfully predicting anything meaningful about future economic trends that wasn't just as easily predicted by laymen.

Well, just the most recent example- that austerity was a bad idea, was predicted by mainstream academic economists. That's pretty meaningful.