Information is AntiFragile (think of wikileaks). The more a central force tries to control it, the more it spreads, as it feeds on attention. This illustrates the fat-tails in informational compared to thermodynamic randomness.
newsnight discussion about internet freedom
I got this from Dailymotion, but it origintates at the BBC.
Shared by JohnH
This (intelligent and humorous) anti-fan might even fall into the camp of ‘enemy’, in the sense that… “You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend no admirer and no partner will flatter you with equal curiosity.”
As to its flaws, it reminded me of one of my favorite aphorisms: “the man who early on regards himself as genius is lost.” He inverts the observation that geniuses are often misunderstood to the insight that misunderstood people are geniuses, and critics of such people are imbeciles who don’t even have the taste to appreciate genius. My criticisms are therefore consistent with him being right or wrong, but falsification is not symptomatic of punditry in general or Taleb in particular.
Shared by JohnH
HatTip to Dave Lull.
To be fair, Taleb challenges us to think for ourselves, a
job too many shirk. He’s as severe with the high and mighty as
he is with the plebs.
At one point, for example, he voices concern about “the
growing separation of the ethical and the legal.” A footnote
reads: “Former U.S. Treasury secretary ‘bankster’ Robert Rubin,
perhaps the biggest thief in history, broke no law.”
As for Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, he inspired this
line: “How superb to become wise without being boring; how sad
to be boring without being wise.”
Shared by JohnH
HatTip to Dave Lull!
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(Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
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Halfway into our conversation, Nassim Taleb’s gray-bearded Levantine face tightens. “If I talk about finance, it corrupts my whole day,” he protests. “Don’t corrupt my day.”
We’ve strayed from a topic Taleb is eager to discuss to one he is anxious to flee. We are here in this French café in Morningside Heights to talk about Socrates, Seneca, Averroës, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Chamfort, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein. These are his forebears in the art of the aphorism, a form he took up for several months earlier this year, resulting in his new book, The Bed of Procrustes, a compendium of Talebian witticisms and skeptical philosophizing: “You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.” “Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous.” “You are only secure if you can lose your fortune without the additional insult of having to become humble.”