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 The Black Swan Nov 20, 2009
This book is extremely tedious and repetitious. The central theme is that the Gaussian (Normal) probability law is an inadequate description of economic/financial outcomes. Consequently most of modern economics and quantitative finance are junk science to the extent they are based on the false assumption above. In addition, the book is mathematically dumbed down to the level of a sixth grader. Thus it provides the reader very little insight beyond the obvious. The author has precious little to offer beyond the simple fact stated above.
Great topic. Terrible execution. Don't waste your time with this worthless book.
 Quite good but a bit pedantic Nov 15, 2009
I have downloaded many of his Youtube videos and read his book twice. The videos are good not great, however the book can become boring due to it being turgid. The basic idea is true but the meandering train of thought causes the rereading of many chapters and then you still may not quite get the point. Since he believes in evolution his theories all have a bias that negates many of his conclusions. Still I would recommend reading this book as it probably will cause you to look at data from a totally different viewpoint. Even if you already have this viewpoint it doesn't hurt to be reminded again that there is another viewpoint that most so called experts avoid and because of this are dangerous.
4 of 6 found the following review helpful:
"The Black Swan" is a practical joke Nov 10, 2009
I'm somewhat suspicious that this book is an elaborate practical joke being played by Taleb. He's obviously a very intelligent man, an excellent and entertaining writer, and has an odd-ball sense of humor that is really appealing. So when I find after having read about 1/3 of the book that I haven't gone more than a few pages in a row without having found something that is factually incorrect or logically absurd I have to think to myself that it's all a joke. For example, even the title of the book is absurd as it relates to the alleged main premises of the book, and even then the main premises of the book are absurd and not born out by the facts. Black Swans are different species than the Swans found in Australia. In fact when they were discovered the concept of species didn't really exist as it does today. There really wasn't any reason why they shouldn't have named the new bird say, Honker, since if they really thought all Swans were white then a black bird would have to be something different. He claims that "Black Swan" events are unpredictable, carry a massive impact, and that after the fact humans construct explanations to make them appear less random. He also claims that these Black Swan events are the prime determinants of human history. In his words `History does not crawl, it jumps'. Then he bolsters his claim by trotting out a bunch of examples, none of which meet all 3 criteria. 9/11 not only was predictable but was predicted, probably will not have what I would consider a massive impact over the long run, and has certainly been explained conclusively as far as I'm concerned, and I don't know what randomness has to do with the explanation. How the hell could anybody call Google a "Black Swan"? It was just the best of a bunch of search engines. In fact it is a better example of the "Lucky Survivor" he likes to talk about elsewhere in the book than some of his other examples. The first 1/3 of the book is full of this nonsense. The one example that really kind of pissed me off is his criticism of the book "The Millionaire Next Door". That book was really intended to be "descriptive" as much as "explanatory" or as an "advice book", and what they found was that the typical person in the U.S. who had amassed assets in excess of 1 million dollars(1996 dollars) did it by spending considerably less than they earned throughout their careers and investing the difference prudently. If they did invest in something "risky" they only invested a small portion of their net worth in it and they made sure it was something that would pay off big if it panned out. In fact they invested their money in a modified version of Taleb's own 85-15 formulation!!! Their having amassed all those assets was not luck, as Taleb "claims". I just can't believe that Taleb made so many obvious absurd claims like this by accident. It must be a joke.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Good...but not as good as Fooled by Randomness Nov 03, 2009
The ideas presented in this book are essentially the same as those presented in Taleb's first book, Fooled by Randomness, just from a slightly different vantage point. That said, I found Black Swan to be good but you could get the picture reading only Fooled by Randomness, which I thought was the better of the two, if so inclined.
Pros:
- This book will make you keenly aware of the existence of black swans (both good and bad) in almost every facet of life -- actually maybe this is a con because it might keep you up at night.
- Taleb offers tools such as fractil geometry as a replacement for Gaussian distributions (however, still not predictive).
- This text and concepts covered are engaging and thought provoking.
Cons:
- I do agree with other reviews that the book was repetitive. Even more so after having read Fooled by Randomness. It is my suspicion that this book probably achieved so much success riding on the coat-tails of Fooled by Randomness.
Other thoughts:
- Some may find Taleb's irreverance and style abrasive, but I actually kind of like it.
2 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Thought Provoking Book Nov 02, 2009
I bought this book because I am an active investor and I had a little knowledge of Nassim Taleb. This is not an investment "stragegy" type book. It will definitely challenge the way you look at the risk and rewards/penalities of most aspects in your life.
While I loved the book, some of the chapters (Taleb warns the reader as well)are a little boring to read. Some of the discussion about philoshers from the 1500's and 1600's is beyond my level of interest. That said, they are still relevenant to the book.
Taleb does a great job illustrating the fallacies and the dangers of "bell curve" thinkers.
From investors standpoint I like this book a lot. As mentioned before there are no specific strategies, but the book will help you in your mental approach towards investing and understanding risk.
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