Tag Archives: aphorisms

Tom Keene interviews Nassim Taleb on U.S. Economy, New Book – Video – Bloomberg

Nassim Taleb www.bloomberg.com-2010-12-20

What if NNT had is own show! That I’d watch.

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — New York University professor Nassim Taleb talks about his new book “The Bed of Procrustes.”
Taleb, author of “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” also discusses the U.S. economy and financial regulation. Taleb speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance Midday.” (Source: Bloomberg)

BBC News: Tuesday 14th December With Nassim Taleb

Links to BBC radio interview with NNT. HatTip to Dave Lull.

The intellectual guru Nassim Taleb has published
a collection of philosophical aphorisms.

He explores his favourite theme of the limitations of human knowledge.

NNT BBC Radio 12/14/10

Sunday Times The Bed of Procrustes Review

The Sunday Time’s Robert Collins wrote a review of The Bed of Procrustes. It’s behind a paywall but NNT was kind enough to make it available from his site. Here’s a direct pdf download link.
And thanks to Dave Lull for letting me know.
Here’s an excerpt:

The likes of Facebook, though, get his epistemological hackles up: “Social networks present information about what people like; more informative if, instead, they described what they don’t like.” And so that’s precisely what Taleb does: gyms, economists, carbohydrates, journalists — he loathes them all. “I take a ritual bath after any contact, or correspondence (even emails), with consultants, economists, Harvard Business School professors, journalists, and those in similarly depraved pursuits.”

Oh, and don’t forget you: “Newspaper readers exposed to real prose are like deaf persons at a Puccini opera.”

But if there’s one thing that truly gets Taleb’s goat in his arch if uneven meditations, it’s jobs: “Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.” Which brilliantly proves how clever the maddeningly wise Taleb is: he’s cured himself of that problem completely.