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matt_thac 's review for:
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Antifragile attempts to establish the world as a fearsome place, where the only thing that is predictable is that nothing is predictable. In this Hobbesian world of all-against-all chaos, fortune favours the brave and the bold, those "heros" who fly headfirst into any fray or business venture.
This is, of course, bunkum. In his railing against academia, he assumes that all academics must think like him, that they know everything and can therefore predict the world with remarkable clarity. His arguments follow the usual logical fallacies related to this thinking, with "reductio ad absurdum" and "no true Scotsman" running through the piste.
Like many men, he's in love with his own ego, which comes across strongly in his constant referring to classical sources as a way of making those without a classical education feel inadequate, or referring to himself at DAVOS, meeting Nobel Prize winners and besting them and so on.
It's worth reading to encourage your own thinking on what risk really means and the limits of our own knowledge and understanding, but his writing can grate.
This is, of course, bunkum. In his railing against academia, he assumes that all academics must think like him, that they know everything and can therefore predict the world with remarkable clarity. His arguments follow the usual logical fallacies related to this thinking, with "reductio ad absurdum" and "no true Scotsman" running through the piste.
Like many men, he's in love with his own ego, which comes across strongly in his constant referring to classical sources as a way of making those without a classical education feel inadequate, or referring to himself at DAVOS, meeting Nobel Prize winners and besting them and so on.
It's worth reading to encourage your own thinking on what risk really means and the limits of our own knowledge and understanding, but his writing can grate.