Having read the Black Swan, as one will discover in my other reviews, I wanted to see if Taleb's more recent work was different than the now more dated aforementioned title. I will summarize this book by saying it is probably the best worst book I have read. Why?

The worst aspect concerns the fact that Taleb is either pagan, or clearly has some idolizing of pagans up to and including Roman Emperors. He states at one point that he believes pagans are intellectually superior to those of believers--or actually his exact words are that is "his heuristic." I will grant him believers have not provided a portrait of stunning intellectual prowess as time has progressed but he should know why. As the belief has persisted and grown, it has been subject to the very phenomena he describes as YHSVH was the foremost Black Swan of the last 2,000 years. As time has progressed, the belief has undergone permutation and has produced some thinkers that are not entirely of the "best stock"--but previous to that, church thinkers were some of the leading intellectuals in art and civilization. The belief then might be best described by both of his proposed models at varying points--both extremeistan and mediocristian.

The best aspect is that this work essentially concludes what the last 2,000 years was basically proving--that love without sacrifice is a form of thievery. If you are not directly "in the game" in such a way as to have something to lose, you are most likely ignorant or a parasite or both. He extends these criticisms to academia and elsewhere in those who work in finance. And again, his conclusions are right--but it is rather like he is operating in the shadow of the realization of the entire Age of Pisces while insinuating he is the Prophet of Truth. Indeed, he IS the Prophet of Truth, but his blindness is selective. I expect he has and is being shaped by the Black Swans of his own life in ways he does not see.

Regardless, in an academic sense, this book has much to offer from a practical view of ethics with a mathematical underpinning. Most of the conclusions here are common sense but one finds the mechanisms of common sense to be at times, counter intuitive to what one might suppose them to be. Taleb assesses these situations from his grasp of risk modeling and taking. Others might model the situations simply through living life.

Many people hate this book because they see Taleb as arrogant. Fine. It is evident that one could make that case. Of course, this same arrogance they quickly attack one can find in spades in the institutions and professions he attacks. Why is it then that people are quick to point out the flaws of Taleb but not these quasi-venerable institutions? It can only be because that something Taleb is saying is correct and it threatens the edifice upon which these institutions rest, arrogant or no. Put simply, none of us like to know the bullshit that fools us because then we must admit that we are fools. Taleb, I suspect, does sense the foolishness in many things, but I wonder if he will ever be able to fully see the foolishness in the endeavor to try to avoid foolishness? To play the game is on some level to sit down at the table across from the fool. Explaining to the fool why the game is foolish will not work for he is, after all, a fool.

My four stars again does not reflect the quality of the writing so much as it concerns my inherent disagreement with some of the thesis advanced. The best analogy I can give is that the rating reflects the story of a hypothetical person who builds houses. This person finds another contractor who also builds houses. His conception and ideas of what a good house looks like are mostly in agreement with the other contractor and in fact are inspirational in some ways. Yet, the discovered contractor has a few conceptions about building houses and the weather that result in the roof of the built house being torn off within a year in all cases. In such a situation, the former contractor cannot flatly endorse the new fellow because some of what he has to say is corrosive to the entire art of building a house. It does not matter how pretty the structure is--if the roof is missing the entire purpose of the house quickly becomes moot.

Yet, sometimes one reads works with which one does not entirely agree. This is often the case in life. The experience in those works and conceptions are valuable given a certain backdrop and given a certain perspective. Mr. Taleb's book is, indeed, in this category. ( )

A strange book that defies simple categories as it crosses many areas of knowledge and even classic book forms.

Taleb’a ideas are hard to understate as critiques to many problems with knowledge in contemporary common discourse. And yet he comes with a package of grump, classicism, ad hominem insults and spits and turd throwing that as a reader I go from embarrassment to laughing to concern…

Maybe Taleb is the opposite of Ben Franklin and yet mantainins coherent person despite this. But I wish the author would realise that open insults splash back onto their source and make for a less clear message.

Whatever the situation this is still a book one realltmy should read if even to understand how what we call non fiction can stretch much wider than is done usually. ( )

Leather cowhide, Castalia Library, limited edition of 900 ( )

I have been hearing about Taleb a lot for a long time, and I picked this one after a colleague was showering praise on this book.

SITG by Taleb is refreshingly frustrating. Yes, many things he says might lack nuance, but he seems to know his shit. He is not foolishly dressing down Thaler or Pinker or Sam Harris. But I don't see the depth of this topic. I would give four stars because of the novelty of ideas and for being common-sensically contrarian. On the first listen, what he says is new, nod-worthy and also gives that aha-moment. But to take his views seriously, I need to "read" the book and dig deep, instead of "listening" to this. My audiobook listening to SITG satisfied my goal. I want to understand in broad stroke why Taleb is being hyped up. In a way, he has "racked his gun" and got my attention with SITG.

I will have to dig into the Taleb rabbit hole in the next weeks by listening to podcasts and other critiques of him to understand him better. I will revisit my ratings in some months. ( )

Pros: good ideas
Cons: poorly written ( )