It is statistically provable that Taleb has the world's biggest ego. I have no time for his rampant mysogyny. I know he might say clever stuff, but it's not worth feeling unclean for.
Correct. We live in a world where sentient intelligence persists upon a substrate of inert, newtonian determinism. Life, itself, stands bound by gravity, upon a rock floating in space. So where’s the investment tactics?
Meanwhile, mysogyny as a personality flaw of the author would not invalidate the merit of any ideas expressed into a vacuum devoid of mysogyny. As adults, individuals should be capable of reading and digesting a non-inflamatory article, if its ideas have merit, and it doesn’t seek emotional agitation.
You should be able to read an article, and ignore the name of the author. Ask yourself: If it were the same article written under a pseudonym, could it still be found valuable?
Are there actually people who argue that brute trial and error with nothing else in play can yield structured knowledge? Note that biological evolution doesn't count because it is not mere trial and error.
Edit: by which I mean, what definitively demonstrates his misogyny as opposed to a gender neutral disdain for historians in general? He's definitely the abrasive ass I described earlier, but misogynist doesn't seem warranted, and it's a label that's thrown around far too freely these days.
[1] https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/beard-nassem-taleb-twitter-f...
I acknowledge that there is a chance I am remembering it incorrectly. Lots of people who joined in his appalling baiting were certainly openly misogynist in their language, and maybe I am accusing him of being guilty-by-association. However perhaps joint-enterprise is a fair stick to beat him with, he certainly and very deliberately tries to get his fan club to wade in on social media. Maybe people who do this bear some responsibility for what their followers inevitably say?
The further complication is that Dame Professor Mary Beard is an outspoken feminist, and this has caused her to receive more than her fair share of misogynist abuse both on social and mainstream media (incidentally her book Women and Power is very readable and I see now in paper-back). Therefore it could be that I was showing my prejudice in assuming that a man attacking Mary Beard was automatically misogynist. Then I think to myself that a man who has no credentials at all in that field attacking a renowned person in that field (from one of the worlds great institutions) in such a vile way must have some special reason to do so.
I guess the final thing is that he did indeed accuse her of having "used feminist cover" (Damn I said I wasn't going to look up quotes). What he seemed to be saying is that she was trying to be exempt from criticism because she was a feminist. I would actually say that that was very misogynist thing to say. It reminds me of the people who try and perpetuate racial slurs an say things like, 'you can't even criticise them for (insert racist trope) for fear of being called racist'.
What is worse, is I came out thinking that he was wrong, and badly wrong at that, but was trying to bully his view to the forefront. But as you can see from reading what I wrote, I am not a scholar of the humanities at all. It is still my personal opinion that he is a misogynist bully, and his ego is so big that it compromises his objectivity.
> Did Pagliucci simply not quote what you're referring to?
Before I finally posted I read the article you linked, I think you have missed this bit
"It isn’t because of the not-so-subtle sexist undertone (not just of Taleb’s, but of many of his Twitter-based supporters)"
So indeed Pagliucci does mention it.
BTW, I predicted the financial crisis of 2008 too. I say that as it seems to be Taleb's main claim to fame. I was wrong about what the trigger would be, but what I identified as a potential cause certainly helped it spread (mind you I could have changed that around when I wrote my book). But then so did my dad, and a plumber I remember talking to at the time. I heard mainstream radio shows about it. In fact it only seemed to be people who were in the financial game who couldn't see it. So what? We could just have easily been wrong.
Taleb is unsurprisingly obnoxious and inflammatory, and you're right that his ego is huge. I don't see anything specifically misogynist from in that thread (although maybe that last one crossed the line, hard to say without context), but if you're right that he encourages his followers in that manner, that's skirting that line pretty damn closely.
At the very least, this is an interesting case study in historical scholarship and philosophy of language for sure (does Beard calling it "accurate" entail that it's "representative" and thus "typical"?). I would have to read a lot more to take a side, but I probably won't. Thanks for the info though!
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/894316405365100544