To make any claim at all you have at the very least wagered your integrity. At the other extreme you've got someone like the free soloist Alex Honnold, who wagers his life every time he scales a cliff without safety equipment. So what does 'skin in the game' even mean? It's kind of irrelevant. Although when Taleb talks about it, he makes it clear he refering largely to financial risk.
>So what does ‘skin in the game’ even mean? It’s kind of irrelevant.
No it’s not. It’s precisely the topic of debate. I see where you’re coming from though. Your concern is with the author’s authority over the phrase, whereas mine is with the nature of the critique, namely the carelessness and inaccuracy resulting in it’s practice.
I have never read this book, but it’s synopsis alludes no more than free market theory; numbingly basic material. Does this catch-phrase add anything to the argument? I cannot imagine how it would. This is nuance-free run-of-the-mill narcissist apologism as motivational speak. Don’t be fooled.
My understanding of the Democrats in the last election is precisely that they were unwilling to have “skin in the game”. It appears that if they had embraced class politics, (the tradition of the American Democratic Party) the election would have been theirs. Because they were unwilling to take that risk, which so many with undeniable “skin in the game” demanded of them, they would have won. Or in other words, they did not have “skin in the game”. Maybe if such a risk were necessary to enter the race, they would have sat it out, in which case we could be quite certain.