I am currently trying to read Taleb's "Black Swan".
Paul and Glen mentioned it earlier a few weeks ago,
and Russ said it has some nice points. So I read
the first chapter and thought "well, interesting".
Then I read the second about Yevgenia Krasnova,
a fictional character which embodies his anger
about publishers, and thought "what a crap".
Somehow it goes on like this: it is hard to
say if it is crap (his "Mediocristan" and
"Extremistan" for example) or a masterpiece.
Chapter three is better again. Many ideas
are exhilarating, but the terms are often
very idiosyncratic.
His main topic, the "Black Swan", is less
interesting than the many thought provoking
ideas one can find between the lines, when Taleb
talks about his experiences or uprising. After
all, points where little things can make a big
difference are not new, John H. Holland has
called them "Lever points", Murray Gell-Mann
"frozen accidents", and Gladwell "tipping points".
Do you agree? What do you think are his most
interesting points? I like for instance the
paragraphs about "scalable professions":
for Taleb it is "a profession in which you are
not paid by the hour and thus subject to the
limitations of the amount of labor" (p. 27).
It is in interesting idea to apply "scalability"
to professions and payoffs.
-J.
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