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The Talebian One himself, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, whom I have written about at length on this blog, has a new book, “Skin in the Game”, which he has been promoting on Twitter. This is not a review of the book; rather, it’s a review of his broader ideas and character.

The problems with Taleb are as follows:

1. contradictory views (holds both elitist and populist views)
2. apparently oblivious about modern option pricing and markets; misconstruing the views of experts (his literary career is predicated on two falsehoods: that options are incorrectly priced and that traders, statisticians, and policy makers are oblivious to tail risk)
3. disproving ‘black swan’ theory requires trying to prove a negative
4. thin-skinned and short-tempered (on Twitter, anyone who doesn’t agree with him is a ‘BS artist’, a ‘journo’, a ‘charlatan’, or an ‘idiot’)
5. a dearth of viable/realistic solutions to financial regulation problems and risk

Why do I care? Because he goes around on Twitter bullying people, calling scientists and economists ‘frauds’ and ‘chalatans’, but cannot take criticism, whereas Dawkins, for example, has received much more criticism than Taleb, for far less, and takes it much better. Although Eric Falkenstein has written some much needed criticism (pretty funny review of Taleb’s AntiFragile) of Taleb regarding volatility and options, more is needed.

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