Thread by @EricRWeinstein

Let me say one thing that I love about @nntaleb and why I‘ve been loyal to him despite my discomforts.

Nassim has been about my only friend & colleague who understands the scope of our problems and is sufficiently disagreeable to never get blown off course.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1239209250695581698

His “IYI” is a critique of almost our entire expert class. His “Skin In The Game” gambit, a critique of our entire system of sense-making. There’s a reason you are discovering yourselves using words like “anti-fragile” & “black swan”. These are but fragments of a giant critique.

In short, Nassim and I have a comparable scope of critique but radically different methods. I can’t take his ad hominem attacks on my colleagues and he no doubt sees me diminished by my half-measures by his standards.

It makes me very sad. But I think I understand it. And him.

But one day you will need your Nassims. You will want people willing to lose it all to try and warn you.

And you will have canceled them because they offended you. Because they said some stupid things on the way to the truth. Because of egos.

But I take Nassim very seriously.

In a crisis, he’s a voice you want constantly driving the system to explain itself.

I’m prepared to lose friends & followers over him. We went through the run up to 2008 & he was the guy who NEVER let up.

In my experience, there is usually even more there than meets the eye.

Your mileage may vary. But with me, 1 on 1, he’s been solid on a lot of deep theory critique for almost 20 yrs...and w/ almost no support. Standing alone.

He may rip my head off for this, but he has been inspiring to me. I just wish his methods were much less brutal & frontal.