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A review by tudlio
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
2.0
Some authors' personalities suffuse their books. This can be both good and bad: [author: Steven Johnson], for example, seems like the kind of guy that I'd love to sit next to at a dinner party: funny, smart, interesting and amiable.
[author: Nassim Taleb], on the other hand, seems like the kind of guy I'd rather avoid. In this book he tells us how little he is impressed by people with money, while carefully enumerating how many people with money he knows. His detailed descriptions of his own maverick path stink of false modesty. But my biggest objection is that this book is ostensibly about something other than Mr. Taleb, when in fact every page is a paean to his wisdom and perspicacity.
To the degree that I could tease a point out of the book, it seems to be the same as you see on your mutual fund prospectus: past performance is no guarantee of future results. Mr. Taleb wants us to understand that dumb luck (or the lack thereof) is the best explanation for the performance of nearly any individual fund or trader. If you want to understand the economy, you need to understand that only when applying the law of large numbers can you approach accurate predictions. Anomalous events, on any timescale, are the rule.
Good point. I just wish he hadn't written an homage to himself to make it.
[author: Nassim Taleb], on the other hand, seems like the kind of guy I'd rather avoid. In this book he tells us how little he is impressed by people with money, while carefully enumerating how many people with money he knows. His detailed descriptions of his own maverick path stink of false modesty. But my biggest objection is that this book is ostensibly about something other than Mr. Taleb, when in fact every page is a paean to his wisdom and perspicacity.
To the degree that I could tease a point out of the book, it seems to be the same as you see on your mutual fund prospectus: past performance is no guarantee of future results. Mr. Taleb wants us to understand that dumb luck (or the lack thereof) is the best explanation for the performance of nearly any individual fund or trader. If you want to understand the economy, you need to understand that only when applying the law of large numbers can you approach accurate predictions. Anomalous events, on any timescale, are the rule.
Good point. I just wish he hadn't written an homage to himself to make it.