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dclark32 's review for:
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
DNF, page 170. This might have been more readable had I not also read Taleb's Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, but the relative freshness of ideas of those two earlier books - providing an incentive to keep reading past Taleb's continuous whining - was missing here. It also lacks the focus of those books. The ratio of ideas to insults is much too low here, and there are long sections that were downright unreadable. The key idea of retaining flexibility to adapt to unpredictable shocks is worthy of book-length treatment, but Antifragile is all over the place. He shuns evidence for his many wild claims, and actually explicitly criticizes the idea that he should require it, given his opponents are stupid anyways. Yet most of his ideas are emphatically not original, and have often been discussed heavily by members of the professions he denigrates. As a particularly galling example, he is not exactly the first person to note that decisions often have unintended negative consequences - though he straight-facedly asserts that he is (this is given chapter-length treatment).
I should be captivated by Taleb's books. There is a lot of similarity in our educational and professional backgrounds, and we largely share a worldview, an insatiable curiosity about a wide-range of topics, and a key interest in the limitations of human expertise. Coming from a background of considerable privilege that allows him the luxury of near-unlimited time to read and reflect, he should be a beacon. But he is an indefensibly obnoxious human being, whose arrogance seems only to have grown with fame. The result is that he is constitutionally incapable of learning from those with whom he disagrees, and the effect on his credibility as a teacher is crippling.
His earlier books are worth holding your nose and studying, but this one ought to be skipped. It is unoriginal, whatever Taleb thinks. With little to learn, there is no reason to subject yourself to the displeasure of sharing his company. What a pity that a great year of reading has to end with such a poor quality book.
1/5
I should be captivated by Taleb's books. There is a lot of similarity in our educational and professional backgrounds, and we largely share a worldview, an insatiable curiosity about a wide-range of topics, and a key interest in the limitations of human expertise. Coming from a background of considerable privilege that allows him the luxury of near-unlimited time to read and reflect, he should be a beacon. But he is an indefensibly obnoxious human being, whose arrogance seems only to have grown with fame. The result is that he is constitutionally incapable of learning from those with whom he disagrees, and the effect on his credibility as a teacher is crippling.
His earlier books are worth holding your nose and studying, but this one ought to be skipped. It is unoriginal, whatever Taleb thinks. With little to learn, there is no reason to subject yourself to the displeasure of sharing his company. What a pity that a great year of reading has to end with such a poor quality book.
1/5