Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of Black Swan, on Bitcoin

Re:Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of Black Swan, on Bitcoin by soneca on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @01:11PM (#16215752)

I think he just isn't a very good communicator (nor cares to be one). He was recently a guest at the excellent podcast Econtalk and you really needed to know his ideas from other sources to properly understand what he was talking about.

I don't think is arrogance or anything, it is just a skill that he doesn't have naturally and also doesn't care enough to practice and improve.

I think his ideas are strong enough to find an audience even without this skill. Contrasting him with a Malcolm Gladwell who, imo, reaches a large audience much more from his communication skills than from the power of this ideas, I think I prefer Taleb's style.

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Re:Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of Black Swan, on Bitcoin by _e on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @02:06PM (#16216376)

Nassim Taleb wrote in one of his books that he intentionally articulates his beliefs in a somewhat difficult to understand fashion otherwise people wouldn't take him seriously.

Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking, Fast and Slow) both credit Nassim Taleb for a lot of inspiration in their books.

Someone mentioned to me that Benoit Mandelbrot (author of (Mis)behavior of Markets) inspired Nassim Taleb for a lot of his thoughts.

So there... read Mandelbrot, Gladwell and Kahneman to understand Nassim Taleb.

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Re:Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of Black Swan, on Bitcoin by qwz4233 on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @03:47PM (#16217532)

Another option for understanding Taleb is to take a rigorous course on stochastic processes. Afterwards, everything he says will make perfect sense.

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