/lit/ - Literature

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms.
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life.

>antifragile

>>16067009
>>16067036
>>16067045
>>16067663
>>16067674
Taleb BTFO IQ.
https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39

>Another blatant case of insulation. Sometimes the divorce between one’s “tawk” and one’s life can be overtly and convincingly visible: take people who want others to live a certain way but don’t really like it for themselves.
>Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow. What the French call “the caviar left,” la gauche caviar, or what Anglo-Saxons call champagne socialists, are people who advocate socialism, sometimes even communism, or some political system with sumptuary limitations, while overtly leading a lavish lifestyle, often financed by inheritance—not realizing the contradiction that they want others to avoid just such a lifestyle. It is not too different from the womanizing popes, such as John XII, or the Borgias. The contradiction can exceed the ludicrous as with French president François Mitterrand of France who, coming in on a socialist platform, emulated the pomp of French monarchs. Even more ironic, his traditional archenemy, the conservative General de Gaulle, led a life of old-style austerity and had his wife sew his socks.
>I have witnessed even worse. A former client of mine, a rich fellow with what appeared to be a social mission, tried to pressure me to write a check to a candidate in an election on a platform of higher taxes. I resisted, on ethical grounds. But I thought that the fellow was heroic, for, should the candidate win, his own taxes would increase by a considerable amount. A year later I discovered that the client was being investigated for his involvement in a very large scheme to be shielded from taxes. He wanted to be sure that others paid more taxes.

>Whenever you hear a snotty (and frustrated) European middlebrow presenting his stereotypes about Americans, he will often describe them as “uncultured,” “unintellectual,” and “poor in math” because, unlike his peers, Americans are not into equation drills and the constructions middlebrows call “high culture”—like knowledge of Goethe’s inspirational (and central) trip to Italy, or familiarity with the Delft school of painting. Yet the person making these statements is likely to be addicted to his iPod, wear blue jeans, and use Microsoft Word to jot down his “cultural” statements on his PC, with some Google searches here and there interrupting his composition.
>Well, it so happens that America is currently far, far more creative than these nations of museumgoers and equation solvers. It is also far more tolerant of bottom-up tinkering and undirected trial and error. And globalization has allowed the United States to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the production of concepts and ideas, that is, the scalable part of the products, and, increasingly, by exporting jobs, separate the less scalable components and assign them to those happy to be paid by the hour. There is more money in designing a shoe than in actually making it: Nike, Dell, and Boeing can get paid for just thinking, organizing, and leveraging their know-how and ideas while subcontracted factories in developing countries do the grunt work and engineers in cultured and mathematical states do the noncreative technical grind. The American economy has leveraged itself heavily on the idea generation, which explains why losing manufacturing jobs can be coupled with a rising standard of living.

>Black Swan is proven right again
How does he do it?

Recent events prove the central thesis of Black Swan (2007) correct. How did he do it?

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

What the fuck then shall we do?

Start at a low enough dosage (sub 100) that you will be able to answer that question for yourself by the time you have worked up to a dosage where it will be an issue (probably 200+).

Taleb was correct in the "Black Swan" over 10 years, but everyone disregarded him as a mad man. Now look where we are. What do you have to say to Mr. Taleb?

>>14919925
Based Taleb poster

Although he refuted IQ, Taleb is still at the top.

Nick Land was outclassed by Taleb. Take your BS back to discord.

He warned us. Now is the time to read his books.

>>14643600

>>14469607
Talebism, based off of the principles laid down in Incerto.

>>14385644
Because it has a horrible track record and psychologists still believe in pseudoscientific nonsense, like IQ. Secondly, nearly all psychologists are klueless IYIs.

What are the best books on Localism?

I want a Antifragile 2 not Skin in the Game (the weakest book).

How to get into Taleb? Should I read the Incerto chronologically? Or should I just read Antifragile and call it a day?

>No author should be considered as having failed until he starts teaching others about writing.

Not allowed are:
nitpickers, fragalista's, IYI's (intellectual yet idiot), BS-vendors, charlatans, gymrats, non-lindy, imbeciles, neo nazi cranks and a few more
Gabish?

Please tell me you've read at least one book by Plato of the 21st century.

Friends, which is your favorite Incerto book? No nit-picking. Gabish?