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    • ABOUT TALEBIBLIA

    Talebiblia is a fan site devoted to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, created by Smiljana Skiba. It features a compilation of Taleb's most intriguing social media screenshots and interviews for readers to enjoy and explore. The website provides a resource for anyone looking to gain insights into Taleb's works, whether they are a dedicated reader or a curious newcomer.

    Please note that Talebiblia is an independent website and is not affiliated with Nassim Nicholas Taleb in any manner.

    Many thanks to Lucia Simeoni and Ashok Atluri for their invaluable assistance in creating and maintaining this website.

    To stay up to date with Talebiblia's latest developments, follow Smiljana on Twitter @MasaSkiba

    Tag: Facebook

    People are natural skeptics, but speak in shortcuts that seem categorical but are not; when they say “bureaucrats don’t have courage” they mean “a high percentage of bureaucrats don’t have courage”, which is why proverbs and aphorisms are heuristic and economical, held to be imperfect approximations. On the other hand, when an academic writes the overly hedged statement “it appears that under some conditions, there have been historically a high percentage of bureaucrats who did not prove have courage”, he generally truly believes that “all bureaucrats don’t have courage”. —- I am writing this because Aaron Haspel and I noticed that when I write the aphorism “most bureaucrats don’t have courage” it is transmitted and repreated in its shorter version: “bureaucrats don’t have courage”. Many of the nitpickers on the web are after the straw man of “generalization” when a heuristic is not categorical.

    The Four Bs: Brain, Balls, Brawn, and Business Sense. — You can have 4 out of 4 (Thales), 3 out of 4 (Plato, who had poor practical sense), 2 out of 4 (most great scientists and great businesspersons), 1 out of 4 (the typical “incremental” modern academics, or people you tend to find in jail), or 0 out of 4 (journalists). (Exception for journalists who take personal risks, of course. Also the “balls” tends to be present in women at least as often as in men)

    Real life (vita beata) is when your choices correspond to your duties and vice versa. — Question: Mr. Taleb, while you advocate “Less is More “, you also suggest”insert redundancies (excessive inventory, extra time) into one’s life”. How could the idea not contradict each other? Answer: Excellent question. We need to simplify the model (or theories/heuristics) and have more redundancies, rather than complicate the model (or theories/heuristics) and have more so-called “efficiencies”. Clear? #Facebook

    Do not socialize with people much richer than you; but if you do, do it in your own territory (restaurants you can afford, wine, etc.) Nassim Nicholas Taleb The reason I am saying that is because I know of a few ultrarich people and avoid them. ALL of them lack the common sense to avoid discussing their private plane with me. — (Corollary) If you socialize with someone with a smaller bank account than yours, you are obligated to converse exactly as if you had the same means, eat in the places where he normally eats, at no point in time show the pictures of your vacation in Provence or anything that hints at the differential in means. #Facebook

    OPEN YOUR OWN STORE When (…) Lebanese entrepreneur Alex Massad— described by Fortune as one of America’s toughest businessmen— first accepted a position with Mobil Oil, Massad’s mother lamented, “[ W] hy don’t you go into business for yourself? Why don’t you open a store?” But Massad stayed on, rising quickly to become one of Mobil’s top executives. Finally, on one visit home, Alex . . . announced triumphantly, “Mama, I have bought a store.” Her elderly face brightened at the news. At last! Alex had taken her advice; her son would finally be judged a success in her community. . . . “I bought Montgomery Ward!” Her smile changed to a disappointed frown. She was unimpressed and said, with despair, “It’s not the same thing. I meant your own store!” In Chua, Amy & Rubenfeld, Jed, 2014 . The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb February 07, 2014 Friends, this subject is for discussion, with back-up if you can: It seems to me that IQ tests favor turkeys. Standard tests of “fluid intelligence” that require the subject to complete a sequence favor a certain class of people who can rapidly detect naive patterns, and penalize those who are natural skeptics with richer imagination. In real life patterns are more complicated and having an ingrained skepticism that slows down inference is an invaluable asset. So my speculation is that it is OK to do well, but not to do very well. Consider the seemingly elementary sequence: a-b-a-b-a -?- [complete ]. Naive pattern matching would give [b] as solution. But in real life ecologies the sequence could have a more complex pattern, a-b-a-b-a-b-b (there is a repetition of the 6th letter) or meta-patterns to consider. These take time to examine and someone smart would need to fight to repress his imagination. So those who do well, but not great, should be much smarter than those who do better. Let us debate. Does it make sense?

    THE NO-BS MEDIA My dream is for someone to publish a SuperRigorous No-BS Newspaper, that is, something providing the news based on empirical relevance, that is, completely devoid of sensationalism. It would be based on the causal and nonanecdotal (i.e., empirical) validity of the information: for instance a hurricane killing four people would not be reported as 7000 people die every day in the U.S., thousands from less sensational –but equally tragic –causes. No terrorism on any day would be reported unless it exceeds death from diabetes (which would be a disincentive for terrorists). Financial market events would only be reported if they exceed 3 mean deviations. The paper would be 0 length on some days, and very long on others. I personally do not need it but it would be mandatory for government; it would make decision-makers and bureaucrats aware that the news is not information. It would separate the news from the entertainment. Hopefully it would make people who like anecdote switch to the New York Post away the disguized pseudointellectual piece of manure called the New York Times (or French Le Monde). For the NYT is the most harmful piece of junk as their BS is dressed in intellectual garment… Anything that bankrupts the NY Times is good for America.