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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
"The Black Swan" was one of the most frustrating books that i have read in a long time. It has been since college that i have run into an author that uses the word "dialectic" in his prose without intending to be mocking. Taleb is clearly a very smart guy, but he is also arrogant, pompous and more than a little bitter about how he and his theories have been treated by those he considers his lessers. The book itself is rambling and often redundant. I actually like the Black Swan concept and agree with most of what Taleb has to say, i just did not enjoy reading him tell about it. I can't recommend this book at all...if you are interested in the concept, search the web for a nice magazine article on the book, and you will be able to pick up the important stuff without wading through repeated references to Lebanon, Wittgenstein, Bell Curves, etc.
well, we as humans shouldn't have overly confidence about we think we know or even better what we don't know.
They say that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. I wouldn't stretch it as far with this book, but NNT is riding a very high horse, and proclaiming himself to be highly knowledgeable and speaking very lowly of many others. While there are a lot of good and valid points being made throughout the book, the tone is just off-putting.
The book includes some legitimate criticisms of statistical reasoning, but the author comes off as rather insufferable.
challenging
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
While Taleb often goes on tangents and digresses rather frequently, his main point comes across to maintain humility in the face of uncertainty.
There are a handful of unpredictable outlier events that have major consequences that shape history. Yet our human minds have a tough time conceiving them due to our cognitive biases, over-reliance on predictions, and our inability to calculate the unknown.
This is explored through a variety of scenarios such as financial crashes, technological breakthroughs and geopolitical upheavals.
There are a handful of unpredictable outlier events that have major consequences that shape history. Yet our human minds have a tough time conceiving them due to our cognitive biases, over-reliance on predictions, and our inability to calculate the unknown.
This is explored through a variety of scenarios such as financial crashes, technological breakthroughs and geopolitical upheavals.
While his writing style does get on my nerves with his better than you voice as well as his at times petty critiques of other thinkers. I rated it as high as I did as it is a book that changes how you think and see the world. There is no denying that he is well read and intellectual, and that he has an idea worth listening to.
NNT elaborates the concept of the incomputable but high-impact phenomenon of the black swan. Amazed at the way he presented a very technical idea narratively. Like the previous book (Antifragile) he used another fiction character which gave a glimpse of NNT personal life (?) Either way, this is a solid read.
Taleb (or NNT as he calls himself) makes some good points about the way we think about risk and randomness. These are very nearly ruined by his arrogance, which permeates practically everything he writes.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, examines the world of Wall Street trading and how randomness plays a part. I found the writing to be extremely arrogant and condescending, not to mention outright boring. This book was extremely disappointing, especially after reading a review that compared it to Freakonomics (which I found fresh and interesting).
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/01/ilym-52-books-in-52-weeks_27.html
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/01/ilym-52-books-in-52-weeks_27.html