Shared by JohnH
This post included the comment:
Taleb’s search for the absence of knowledge has been quite successful, it would seem, and has culminated in a veritable deluge of smug banality. His time might better have been spent learning Bayesian statistics – wherein the pathetic non-conundrums raised in The Black Swan are trivially resolved – or researching what actually occurred in banks.http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8042337/
Which leads to a hilarious poke at NNT. Will embed it as well.
NASSIM Taleb’s book of aphorisms is now out with the the erudite title “The Bed of Procrustes”. For the few readers who lack a classical education (nil desperandum, chaps), Procrustes made travellers fit into his bed by stretching the short ones, and amputating the limbs of the tall ones. Thus, in Taleb's analogy, do we shoehorn events into our existing world view. To put it another way, we target the wrong variable. Economists simplify the world to fit their models but that is like a tailor adjusting the client to fit a new suit.
Anyway, the book is full of insults at his least-loved professions, such as
A mathematician starts with a problem and creates a solution; a consultant starts by offering a “solution” and creates a problem.
The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist.
Most so-called writers keep writing and writing with the hope, some day, to find something to say.
That one is food for thought for a blogger. And finally
An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant, the opposite.
