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I also found his arrogance in Black Swan insufferable - enough that I lost all taste for his writing. I saw him talk in person in my building when he was promoting Anti-Fragile, and I was also not impressed. Do you still recommend I read Fooled By Randomness?

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Read Success and Luck by Robert Frank instead

I would.

Do you think highly of Mandebrot? Clearly a deep thinker. Most of his writings are filled with his self references.

My own academic papers have a decent number of self references, too. But there is an enormous difference between referencing your own work, and telling the reader that the author is brilliant and those other people over there are stupid.

Ok, so what your call be about Benoit pointing out how smart he is making me feel non-brilliant?

I am honestly not sure what you are saying. I never brought up Mandelbrot, only Taleb. (Although this is a curious example, since Taleb brings up Mandelbrot a lot.)

My clumsy attempt was to draw a parallel between to authors who do a comparable amount of self congratulation.

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