Conclusion: Why Nassim Nicholas Taleb Would Hate This Article

I enjoyed Taleb’s book, but Taleb would not like this article. This is not because the author would resent the effort, or think that the article is a poor summary of his book—quite the contrary. The problem is with the style. There is no randomness to speak of. Not a single digression. In other words, it is very clear that the article is the result of a plan—and a detailed plan at that. By contrast, Taleb’s book jumps around all over the place, and is stock full of digressions and asides. That is, it incorporates randomness. This is not the result of poor editing (as some have suggested). Rather, I suspect that Taleb has chosen this route for both aesthetic and instrumental reasons. The author simply enjoys randomness in all its forms (as has been made clear). What’s more, I am confident that he believes that, as complex creatures (with complex minds), we respond better to ideas when they are presented with some measure of randomness. That is, ideas sink in better when they are presented in a stochastic way. I am not convinced that this is true.

via #26. A Summary of ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | New Books in Brief.