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Sports Commentary and Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Taleb is a profound thinker and quite mysterious character, and to say his website still looks like it is stuck in the 90’s is probably a compliment. My Google searching left me empty handed as to dedicated site to him so for these reasons I decided to start this website, to serve as an index of his work and appearances around the web, and to do a little bit more blatant promotion of his ideas than he does himself (at least online).

There is plenty of material to cover, for now be sure to checkout his Twitter where he is active, and recently also started back up his Facebook page.

18 comments

    1. Hello Nassim!
      My name is Joseph Toppe and I am a senior reporter with Capital.com in London. We are e doing a story on After Hours trading and was hoping we could send you a few questions for comment?

      We greatly appreciate your time and hope to hear from you soon.

      Kind Regards
      Joseph Toppe

  1. I have one comment and one reservation about Antifragile. The comment relates to profragility and reservation relates to history.
    Every system, organism and institution that is antifragile consist of two types of elements or components. Profragile that seeks fragility and robust. Any new technology or innovation is Profragile and these are needed for growth. The robust elements/comments of the system that have withstand the test of time. So they are the save heaven in an event of black swan. An army is profragile and castle walls robust. I am writing a book on profragility. It explore the characteristic of profragile and why they are essential. You have already identified them but just like there was no word to describe antifragile same is the case for profragile. Banks are fragile, options profragile. There is a big difference between the two. Profragile have huge payoff in case of success but definite losses that are more eminent than a once in a life time success.
    Now something about the history. You wrote that there is no point reading history that is not older than at least fifty years. Here is the catch. As per your own argument in Black Swan, history is smooth out because of human need to have a coherent story. It implies backward thinking as highlighted by the turkey problem. Building on this argument I can safely assume that history is not at all reliable whether its old or new. Older the history is more dangerous it is to be used as a guide as it has been smooth out even more than the recent one.

  2. Hi, I´m brazilian!
    I would like to use a term created by Nassim Taleb in a job that I am building, giving due credit of course. Is there a email so I can better explain what it is, to see if Nassim Taleb allows me to use it?
    Thank you!

  3. I just ran across this article: quantamagazine org/the-grand-unified-theory-of-rogue-waves-20200205/.

    Although I have little math background and at 78 have forgotten most of what I learned, it seems like collecting a huge amount of data (7 terabytes were mentioned in that article about waves in a defined area) may have some practical utility.

    Whether that is the opinion of the good professor is unknown to me. It would be interesting to get NNT’s opinion on the relevance of the information in that article to his notion of market movements and like phenomena.

  4. Dear Mr Taleb,
    I follows you since your book the “Black Swan” and I would love to have your opinion about an idea that is in my head since Covid19 has been completely underestimated.
    >What about to bet of the financial default of USA ? I mean as a country.
    I think this would be the biggest fat tails event that I can imagine.
    An here comes my question : which finance product is suitable to insure for such event ?
    It will be an honour to hear from you. It
    PS: FYI one of my year resolution is to read again Antifragile in November of every year. Somehow I find always something new to learn.
    Thanks
    Best regards
    RC ( Germany)

  5. Hi Naseem,
    I hope you are very well.
    I enjoyed reading your books and profound insights – especially the significant effect of the improbables in our lives.
    I would highly appreciate your time to look at my modest book, An Exhibition of Existence as it attempts to show evidence on what many people believe as « improbable » !

    Thanks

  6. Also If I may add, that the ultimate “Black Swan” that will break all times records of black swans will be the final discovery that God in fact really exists!

  7. Since I did not find his name in the bibliographies of the Turkish editions of your books, I wanted to share it, assuming you did not read it.

    -The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)
    -The Language of Change: Elements of Therapeutic Communication
    -Ultra-Solutions: How to Fail Most Successfully
    -The Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know?
    -How Real Is Real?: Communication, Disinformation, Confusion
    -Munchhausen’s Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & “Reality” Essays and Lectures
    by Paul Watzlawick

    Best regards,

  8. Anti-fragile, the best book I have ever read. Direct, clear and concise. Made me think and change the perspective of things. A game changer. Thanks Taleb.

  9. Dear Sir,
    I am currently working on a manuscript and I would like to use the below quote but I couldn’t find it in any specific source even though I searched all your books.
    Firstly, I would like to ask if this is your statement and if so, could you please guide me in the right direction to cite/reference it properly.
    Secondly, may I request your consent for me to use this quote in my manuscript titled ‘Risk Culture in Commercial Air Transport’.
    Many thanks for your help in advance.
    Kind regards
    “Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we’re building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.”

  10. This response is motivated by your strong anti-inductive argument in Black Swan. I am up to page 56, 2010 edition, this is the first of your books I have read. Though it would be tempting to induce that people have pointed out what I am about to say to you before, that is not proof that they have not. It also soothes my obsessive nature to express this to you.
    Your language when making probability statements in some cases, is logically opposite to your meaning. I have seen several examples thus far, but this is the one I have just read: “If I see a black swan I can certify that all swans are not white.” Do you not mean not all swans are white? What you have written means that no swan is white.
    It may be an American colloquialism, similar to “I could care less” when they mean precisely the opposite: “I couldn’t care less” – as is used in British English.(I know you are Levantine, but according to your biography your non-French schooling was American so I have made an assumption about your colloquial influences.)
    I note also that in this sentence you may be illustrating an example of the round trip fallacy, rather than a statement avoiding that fallacy. But the structure of the paragraph does not give that impression to me.

  11. Mr. Taleb, I’m doing everything I can to have an opportunity to join your real-world risk management class (online). I don’t have a resume so I did a brief video explaining who I am and what I do. Please consider for your acceptance in your online class. Not seeking scholarship opportunities. I will pay what’s required. Here’s the link: https : // is.gd/aX129F

  12. I’m a fan of Nassim Talen even when A. I can’t understand WTF he’s talkinig about and B. I think he is 100% wrong when I can understand what he’s talking about.

    We need more systems thinkers.

    I have one request which I understand is the longest of long hail mary’s.

    Taleb blocked me years ago on Twitter for some dumb comment I made. I acknowledge that the comment was dumb and Taleb had every right to block me. I am just dissappointed that it seems this is a life sentence.

    I will pledge that if I am unblocked, I will always bring a good attitude and my A game to any of Taleb’s threads in the future. My handle is @Zachariahskylab

    Please consider granting this humble Florida termite protection specialist’s request. And even if you don’t, please keep up the good work.

  13. My name is Xavi, I am from Barcelona and I am trying to carry out an extremely complicated proposal.

    The reason for the message is that I am trying to find a way to get in touch with Nassim Taleb or that someone can send him a personal letter.

    The reason why I am trying to do this is out of love. I have written a letter explaining to Nassim Taleb my desire to get in touch with him.

    I am aware that this is almost impossible, but that’s no reason to stop trying.

    I would be eternally grateful if someone could help me, I don’t know how to achieve it.

    Thank you for your time,

    Xavi

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