Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Field Generals put their bodies on the line on every play
Post 69.January 24, 2019
Taleb’s Scars versus Pinker’s Curves
Good versus Evil versus Everybody Else
Nassim Nicholas Taleb suddenly surprised us with his best seller The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable. That insightful work established his credentials as an expert on "fat tails" where fortuitous Dark Swans lurk behind the familiar normalcy of the Bell Curve. But his side jabs at other "so-called" experts and intellectuals built his reputation for acerbic criticism1 of those he regards as having no "skin in the game", i.e. operating without risk of significant loss of money or face. In his latest book, Skin In The Game, Hidden Assymetries In Everyday Life, he noted that "fat tails . . . had become my mathematical specialty"2, in what he calls the polarized territory of "Extremistan". So it's not surprising that he is not such an expert on the hilly terrain in the moderate middle of the statistical Bell Curve. Which may explain why he tends to belittle people like me (risk-averse introverts), and public intellectuals, like cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker, who produced an optimistic assessment of human moral development in his own bestseller, The Better Angels Of Our Nature.
Taleb refers to Pinker derisively as an IYI, "Intellectual Yet Idiot", and wrote a technical debunking of the Angels thesis that humanity is progressing morally. Apparently, Taleb views history as just "one damn thing after another", with no signs of ethical elevation in human culture. I suspect that his underlying worldview is based on the Great Man hypothesis, in which the masses have little effect on the world, because it is essentially a dualistic struggle between the opposing "fat tails" of Good versus Evil2. Regarding academic assessments of progress, he says "the only effective judge of things is time". Which I take to mean something working like ruthless natural selection, that weeds out 98% of things, and allows only a minority to pass on to the next generation. But if the selection was made by "time" on the criteria of fitness-for-the-future3, at least some improvement would be expected, as fitter individuals survive at each step of the way, passing-on battle-tested genes, or memes, to the next generation.
Taleb's heroic tragic world is best described in terms of abstract statistical mathematics, which is meaningless to the average Joe. But Pinker's world is that of interactions between average humans, i.e. moral transactions. So while the numbers guy is focused on the eternal struggle between black & white polar opposites, the human nature guy is looking at the multi-colored middle of the distribution curve. Rare Black Swans4 may disrupt the best laid plans of Great Men, yet it’s the masses of White Swans in the middle whose behavior adds-up to what we call human history. Kings & Quarterbacks get all the credit, but plebians & footsoldiers do the dirty work, and they put their "skin" on the line too.
I have enjoyed Taleb’s piquant & aphoristic writings on human economic behavior. But I also appreciate Pinker’s rational & sanguine evaluation of civilization’s ethical evolution. Attitudes are not so easily reduced to quantitative measures. Yet it’s important for us to somehow gauge our moral health & wealth as a species. In that regard, atheist Pinker has boosted, with reams of data, my deistic intuition that evolution is an ententional & teleological process.
End of Post 69
1. Critical assessment of skinless critics : Taleb says he can write his trenchant essays without regard for IYI critics, in part because he has f*ck-you money. I don’t have the money, but I maintain my independence with a F-you attitude toward public opinion. NNT is disparaging of paper-shuffling bureaucrats and tenured academic administrators, with nothing to lose (no skin in the game). But he seems to admire Donald Trump, because he buys into the myth of a self-made billionaire, who can say F-you to feckless politicians. However, independent reporters are revealing that The Donald may have risked lots of daddy’s skin (money) in the game of selling name-brand air castles. Taleb is also derisive of “soft” social scientists, like Pinker, who publish mostly opinions, and gives his respect to “hard” scientists, who write no-nonsense mathematical equations. But Skin In The Game is itself mostly a series of his personal opinions, hard-won from his own skin scars in the greed game. [ click here for Notes on Style ]
2. Fat Tails : In economics, a Bell Curve probability distribution that indicates a high level of potential Black Swan risk by the unusual graphical thickness of its extreme ends, which are normally skinny. It’s the unpredict-ability of such blind-side hits that makes it scary.
2. Great Men versus the Masses : Like Quarterbacks, Great Men get the credit and the blame for all the wins and losses in the game of life. But it’s the linemen & pawns that get skinned-up and bleed for their kings & bishops. [ point here for popup]
3. Fitness for Future : Materialists would deny that Natural Selection has any teleological tendencies, but merely preserves things suited for niches in the Now. However, Terrence Deacon has produced a finely detailed and copiously documented argument for “teleodynamics” in evolution : Incomplete Nature, p264 - 287 .
4. Black Swan : Extremely rare and unpredictable possibilities, that, if they occur, can have devastating effects on those unprepared. The problem is that you can’t plan for statistically off-the-charts events, except by being psychologically prepared for anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
N. N. Taleb and Ayn Rand [ click here for popup ]
See Post 70 for note on Rand’s “arrogant” coinage of a novel name for her Objectivist philosophy.
“The problem with Taleb is not that he’s an asshole. He is an asshole. The problem with Taleb is that he is right.”
—Dan from Prague, Czech Republic (Twitter)
N. N. Taleb and Ayn Rand
Taleb is a social & economic Libertarian, which places him in the same orbit with Rand. Her personal philosophy was Objectivism, while his position is Empiricism. Their differences are minor. Both are imaginative geniuses and self-made mensch, who are openly contemptuous of officials & experts, driven by herd instinct, and too timid to play with “skin in the game”.
Although I am a diffident introvert, reluctant to commit skin into the pot, my general worldview is in many ways consonant with both, and in some ways incompatible. Rand summarized her philosophy in four points (Taleb in parentheses) : 1. Metaphysics : Objective Reality (Empiricism) 2. Epistemology : Reason (Uncertainty) 3. Ethics : Self-Interest (Silver Rule) 4. Politics : Capitalism (Libertarianism)
My personal philosophy for comparison : 1. Metaphysics : Enformationism 2. Epistemology : Reason & Intuition 3. Ethics : Self & Other Interest 4. Politics : None, but leaning Libertarian
Notes on Style :
N.N. Taleb writes from the perspective of an intuitive, risk-taking entrepreneur with dirt under his fingernails. So his position is : Anti-Intellectual : Practical Anti-Rational : Feeling Anti-Planning : Heuristic Anti-Academic : Pragmatic Anti-Theoretical : Concrete Anti-Thinking : Doing
Although his anti-rants resonate with the common man, he is himself a genius and an intellectual, who carefully plans his didactic pedagogic how-to-be-a-genius-like-me books . So his simplistic black & white aphorisms can seem disingenuous from the BothAnd perspective.
Taleb disparages timid people like me : sheep with wool, but no skin, in the game. Wolves have no use for fuzzy fur, yet humans will spare the lives of their bleating pets in return for a renewable resource. It’s a low-risk trade-off of no interest to heroic traders. But then heroes tend to be short-lived.
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