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Health, Mind & Body |
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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Studio : Penguin Books Ltd
by Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher : Penguin Books Ltd
Released : 2008-02-28
Availability : This Item is currently Not Available
EAN : 9780141034591
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 377 reviews)
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Open your mind |
I must recognize that through the easy and entertaining Mr Taleb's style, I have adquired a wider vision of how we, as human beings, mostly and unreasonably make predictions.
300 pages would have been enough (it has 400, at least in spanish edition).
Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book. Open you mind and have fun! |
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Interesting...if you can get past his enormous ego |
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It's too bad Taleb's ego is louder than his thesis. While he puts forth many interesting and insightful concepts and thoughts, the price one must pay to find them amongst the egocentric drivel that fills most of the pages makes this read hardly worth the effort. I can't help but think that the basic arguments from such a pretentious elitist could only be hot air. It's hard to take him seriously. |
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How compare to author's "Fooled by Randomness"? |
The author has also written "Fooled by Randomness". Both books deal with the same matter; how low risk/chance events can have a major impact more often that realised. The book earns five stars because it forces the reader to think about a very important issue.
Which of the author's books should you buy?
1. What a big font, very easy read? Then go for "Fooled by Randomness"
2. Want a small font, more intellectual read? The go for this book.
There is absolutely no need to read both. Just pick the one the fits your temperament.
Any critique? The book is focusing on just one matter and the author is pushing it a bit too one-sided. However, it doesn't matter if the book isn't balanced. The book gets you thinking. You should expose yourself to the ideas. Stylistically the book is not very good. However, this is not poetry so I would not put much emphasis on this point either.
Who should buy? All social scientists, all people investing in the stock market, and all people involved in planning about the future.
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Surprisingly personal diatribe |
I just finished reading the Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
The book is about the disproportionate effect on our world of highly improbable events, and the difficulty of predicting those events. The name comes from David Hume's observation that many generations of Britons' only seeing white swans was not proof that there is no such thing as a black swan (which do, in fact, exist).
I found the book very disappointing. It started out with so much promise; I looked forward to reading all sorts of anecdotal stories of these so-called black swans, and about the disproportionate effect on our world.
Instead, what I got was a 300 page diatribe by one statistician against all the others in the world who disagree with him, punctuated by an occasional gratuitous insult of the French.
After enduring several hundred pages of personal stories about the author's quest to make his statistical theories known (which are not quite as controversial as he would make you believe, by the way), finally in Chapter 15 it seems that he will get to the meat of the matter. Unfortunately, even though the next three chapters were laden with graphs and figures, I encountered no such explanations. Or, if there were any, they were muddled at best.
Even the anecdotes were disappointing. I was excited to start reading about a great vindication of his - the collapse of LTCM in 1998 (which was run by several of his statistical nemeses) - expecting to find a wonderful explanation of what went wrong, and all the financial turmoil which resulted. Instead, he simply stated "it went bust." Duh.
I have no idea why this book has been so highly touted. Perhaps it is because it came on the heels of 9/11, and just before the credit turmoil which started in 2007. But it's not worth your time. |
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Tantalising and frustrating. |
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The major ideas in this book are without question very important but unfortunately,in my view, poorly elucidated.The arguments are presented in a rambling confused way with lots of superfluous material that serves to obfuscate rather than clarify. The author seems unable to make a point clearly and succinctly and then leave it alone. The interminable stories, name dropping and confusing exemplars make reading large sections of the book sheer drudgery. In addition by basically calling everyone who disagrees with him a moron he casts himself in a very poor light.I also suspect that English is not Mr Talebs native language and this explains his awkward somewhat stilted prose. At the end of the book I could not help but feel that an opportunity for a great book had been squandered for want of a good editor. |
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