The Problem with Mr Taleb - Antifragile Review

In Antifragule, the economist, philosopher and options-trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb sets out to articulate the principles of "that which gains from disorder". Along the way he discusses a number of other topics, such as iatrogenics and the importance of acknowledging our inability to plan for black swans. There is a varying level of originality in the book's observations - the principle of planning while keeping unpredictability in mind is a fairly old one. In saying that, conceptualising unpredictability as an engine for growth may actually be a new idea.  Even the unoriginal points that Taleb expounds on, highlight ideas that don't received a lot of public attention so Taleb's mentioning of them is still quite welcomed.

The most contentious parts of Antifragile are found in the sections where Taleb argues that academic research comes after, not before, human progress has been made. The tinkerers shall inherit the earth, the nerds know nothing. New medicines are "discovered" by private firms far more often than in publically funded laboratories (p.231), and we should take note of the huge technological innovation that happens in the playground of Silicon Valley (p.42). The question as to whether private firms simply patent/develop more variations of already existent drugs, as opposed to discovering new ones, is left unexplored; as is the tech industry's infamous reliance on publically funded research programs to develop their gadgets. Outside of that, the brash and aggressive writing style, that Taleb is known for, is very prominent. Almost every negative review I have read of Taleb's work mentions his preening arrogance and even the positive reviews often concede this point. Initially, I wanted to conduct a review of Antifragile that didn't dissect his personality. Alas, I have found that to be a difficult task, if only because so much of Antifragile attempts to communicate Taleb's vision of himself.

There is a clear and carefully curated persona on display: Taleb is a cultured, wine drinking, straight talking, poetry loving, power lifter. He is a lone wolf - uninterested in your awards and approval. He tells it like it is. He is streetwise, well-read and cultured, but under no circumstances to be thought of as a nerd. Taleb is manly and brave. Taleb is a man of action, not like those other scholars with their spectacles and atrophied muscle. On its own, this kind of chest-thumping would be a mere annoyance, inconsequential to the quality of the scholar's work; unfortunately, it seems it has bled into the content of Taleb's writing, to the detriment of his argument's credibility.    

Consider Taleb's chapter on the ethics of risk taking. The ethics section of Antifragile lays out a maxim for moral behaviour that focuses on keeping the collateral of risks limited to those who volunteer their own skin. People who risk their own good for others, are heroes; those who risk their own good for their own gain, are passable humans and those who risk others for their own gain, are villains - according to Taleb. To elucidate on the consequences of this moral outlook, Taleb handily provides  us with a table (p.377) which places various professions - artist, writer, businessman, soldier - into one of three columns. The columns are "no skin in the game" (bad), "skin in the game" (neutral) and "skin in the game for others sake" (good). The table however, seems somewhat arbitrary. For example: journalists who analyse and predict events are in the bad column, activists are neutral and rebels and revolutionaries are good.

Why are journalists bad, but activists neutral when both seek to predict and comment on society? It is true that we rarely hold journalists accountable for their failed predictions, but we hold activists accountable even less. A journalist risks embarrassing themself on a public stage; conversely, most activists are voices in an otherwise anonymous crowd. The only real difference between the two is respectability, but that is a matter of scale and Taleb's claim is that there is something qualitatively different in the way they externalise risks. Furthermore why on earth would Taleb place revolutionaries automatically in the good column? Revolutionaries may believe that good things await everyone in the coming social order but the consequences of failed revolutions are well documented. We have every reason to think that the revolutionaries risk the wellbeing of everyone not just themselves - this is precisely the kind of behaviour that Taleb supposedly repudiates.

How then can we explain this bizarre ranking, inferred from the table, that revolutionaries are the most virtuous risk takers when compared to activists and, certainly, in comparison to journalists? The answer is by appealing to Taleb's persona. Once we understand that revolutionaries, activists and journalists are not being ranked in accordance with their management of risks but rather in relation to a warrior/scholar archetype that Taleb identifies with, then the ranking starts to make more sense. Journalists are effete, sheltered members of the establishment; activists are scrappy underdogs but revolutionaries, the most macho of the three, fight wars and topple governments - they are, in Taleb's eyes, the most worthy of respect.

The irony is that Taleb's approach to ethics is, on the whole, quite plausible. I may have my doubts about it, I am not certain that we can ever really take risks entirely on our own, but it is a valid approach to doing ethics in an uncertain world. This is exactly what I mean when I say that Antifragile is a solid work burdened with poor and distracting set-dressing. Antifragile provides plenty of novel angles to work from, but their value is obscured by its author's desperation to be thought of as a scholarly mafioso.

While Taleb is smart enough to know that he should only allude to the mafia-like qualities of his persona, Mafia bosses are referenced to as exemplars of his observations (p.43). And late in the book Taleb makes the more bizarre claim that mafia dons have a form of honour that escapes contemporary leaders (p.376), in so far as Mafia bosses are the most likely to be whacked- or so goes Taleb's account of organised crime. Naturally this is nonsense. Even a casual reader can tell you that frequently the first to die in any given drug-war are the low-level dealers, and that criminal conspiracies are usually orchestrated to leave the higher-ups untouchable, if it all goes wrong. The crime-barons sit safe in their mansions reaping the dividends of their empire, while the youngsters, eager to prove themselves, are left with the dirty, dangerous and incriminating footwork on which the empire is built. The reality is the opposite of what Taleb thinks it to be, but the grim glamour of the macho mafia-don archetype sells it to Taleb and glosses over the lack of veracity.

Taleb, towards the end of the book, also advises readers to think for themselves and savages those who use the opinion of others to gather knowledge about the world (p.419-20), not long after defending tradition (p.257) and advising the reader to prioritise useful heuristics over abstract truth seeking. This is also ignoring that conformity itself is a heuristic. The behaviours and thoughts of others are an excellent resource for selecting a strategy in times of uncertainty. The gazelle that stops to ask "Why am I running just because everyone else is running?" is destined to become lion chow. Taleb thinks of himself as a street-wise "doer" concerned with what works over what is true, but also wants to be the principled, sceptical upstart - not realising that often these two ways of seeing the world come into conflict and that he needs to be much more flexible if he wants to mesh the two ways of thinking.

Most of these problems are just a result of Taleb's romanticised aesthetic crashing against the more reasoned parts of the book: blips of momentary incongruence generated by Taleb's posing as a refined, street-smart, independent scholar. When you step back from these blemishes you find that they are mostly negligible. Antifragile is still an interesting book and well worth reading. What is infuriating however, and what I have been trying to get across here, is that while Taleb may have convinced himself that his opponents are just stooges for the academic orthodox, it may be that the biggest thing standing in the way of Antifragile's credibility, is Mr Taleb himself.    

The 2016 Half Time Review

With the arrival of June comes this year's edition of Cut-throat and Clueless' Half-Time Review. As you might have noticed, I have half-finished redesigning this blog in celebration of this milestone. For my original list of 2016 resolutions click here, and for my last quarterly review click here. Below is a summary of victories and setbacks that have been achieved and/or suffered over the last three months.

Resolutions.

1. Reading, Writing, Running.

My reading has picked up its pace since I last discussed my resolutions on this blog; my writing has been steady, though mostly fiction orientated, and my exercise regime has finally diversified to include body-weight training - routines that once reduced me to a huffing mess, I now breeze through effortlessly and it feels great! I have also recently booked myself onto a distance learning course with the UK Society for Editors and Proof-Readers - I'm looking forward to it immensely. I also have my first Judo session, in years, coming up at the end of this week.

2. Get Techie.

Hurrah for progress! I have finally started learning Python and it's fascinating. Coding engages a very different part of my brain to that which is engaged when reading and writing philosophy. Frankly I'm excited to learn something tech related but also hoping to gleam some of the mental benefits associated with programming. Granted the few hours I have put in so far were grinded out purely so I'd have something to write here, but the enjoyment I have received from it has been genuine.   

I'll have to find some sort of project to focus on later in the year, at the moment I'm just trying to memorise the basics.

3. Get Foodie.

There has been too much progress made here to list comprehensively. Notable success' include home-made pizza made from scratch; vegetable pakora and a couple of other great finds discovered among my growing collection of cookery and cocktail books. I'm making food better, faster and with less stress than ever before. As a side note, I've discovered that food and drink books are remarkably reflective of their social origins.

Consider that "The Savoy Cocktail Book" written by Harry Craddock back in the 1930's is close to 300 pages long with almost every page containing  4 or 5 recipes, each of them calling for a variety of spirits and liquers. By contrast, "Good Things to Drink" written by Mr Lyan, and published last year, features recipes that tend to focus on one particular spirit and prefers the intelligent use of mixers and garnish to accompany drinks. In terms of "recipes per page", it has one recipe for every couple of pages with the majority of the book being photos of Mr Lyan and his friends drinking in rustic locations while looking infuriatingly hip.

This is the unfortunate consequence of modern advertising, and caused by the same forces that have perfume companies advertising with bizzare montages of models sliding out of Limos. While Craddock may bring content by the bucket-load, Mr Lyan would trounce him in terms of sales if they ever competed - the gloss sells.

Gripes aside, as much as I have enjoyed Mr Lyan's book, he has a bad habit of tacking "top up with champagne" onto the end of his recipes; the fact that he considers adding champagne to be an afterthought indicates that mixology has yet to escape its privileged roots.

Cut-Throat's Pre-emptive Round Up of 2015

Work, independent research and life has made writing here tricky and, I fear with the new year nearing, my posting will only get more sporadic. January-February time is doctoral funding season and work has already begun with my supervisor on my own applications; accordingly I figured that it was worthwhile doing a pre-emptive round up in case I don't have time for it come hectic December. Perhaps I could have pushed this back another month or so but then again this may make for a good ear-marking of the 2000 view milestone that I just hit: I have no idea whether 2000 views in the first 8 months is good or bad in terms of blogs but it feels sufficiently significant.

Procedurally, the process for this post will involve picking one fiction and one non-fiction book alongside one album to stage as particular highlights of the year. None of these works came out in 2015 but they are nonetheless the highlight of my own personal exploration in culture this year. So, moving beyond the fanfare...

Fiction Pick of the Year

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Welsh, for a long time, has sat on the shelf in my mind labelled "must get round to him someday" and it was a pleasure to finally read him. Trainspotting is a landmark of contemporary Scottish culture which is one of the reasons I wanted to read it: when I lived in Sweden there were a surprising number of people with a strange interest in it; though generally they had seen the film rather than waded through the Scottish accent that characterises the prose. I get the feeling that their fascination was spawned by a morbid curiosity as to how a culture could produce and love a work so notoriously self-loathing.

However, the reputation that Welsh has garnered makes the actual content of the book all the more surprising. In places it is strikingly human and demonstrates a sympathy and keen eye for the foibles, roots and pathologies of its characters. Renton, the narrator focused on in the film but who is one of many in the book, has a clear rebellious streak that occasionally bleeds over into a churlish teenage nihilism but even at his worst has interesting things to say. It's a rather trite cliche but the film really isn't as good as the book; or at least it isn't as in depth. There are startlingly jarring moments such as the feminist-esque parable "The Elusive Mr Hunt" which show a more careful eye for social interaction than that which was allowed onto the silver-screen. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it has thrown my previous perceptions of the author.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Year

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

For the past couple of months I have been experimenting more and more with writing guides; this one is far more of a style book than it is a grammar guide. As Forsyth points out, good grammar isn't necessarily always good writing. Academically, Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style" - itself a brilliant use of descriptive linguistics to create a field manual in good, readable grammar - has probably been more helpful but The Elements of Eloquence is just so much more fun.

The emphasis is very much on having fun with the English language, its rhythms, sounds and various effects. It may not have clued me in on how to perfect my past and present tenses or navigate the various pratfalls of plurals but it certainly re-ignited the fire in my belly for constructing some good memorable prose.  

Album Pick of the Year

Knowledge is Power by Akala

 I have remarked on this blog a number of times about my quest to search out and enjoy new music this year. In light of such talk I think it's only fair to include an album of the year in my round up. One particular genre, which has lead me to reconsider poetry, is hip-hop. I started watching battle rap about a year and a half ago and was blown away at, sexism and homophobia aside, just how witty a lot the rappers were. 

Akala however, I found through the Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle: Boyle invited Akala on to a programme of his in order to talk about racism in the U.K. As you might have guessed Akala is a "conscientious rapper" with a lot his themes and lyrics drawing from the speeches and writings of Malcom X. In particular he has a desire to speak truth to the powerless rather than wasting his breath on the powerful. In this album his focus seems to be on inspiring working class youth, particularly non-white working class youth, to engage in political, social and personal activities that benefit themselves and their communities rather than the owners of capital. Interestingly Akala interprets the role of the modern conscious MC through the tradition of the African Griot, a curator of cultural knowledge, and this no doubt feeds into his role as part of the hip-hop Shakespeare company. I could go on and on, but both the depth of his subject matter and his lyricism when discussing it has made this album a real stand out.

Closing Remarks

As remarked in the title and introduction this is a pre-emptive list. It is only as definitive in so far as I don't update it later in the year, though much of my work will be focused on political philosophy for the next few months and I don't anticipate reading much fiction anytime soon.

"Rethinking Democracy" By Carol Gould: First Thoughts On Reading

 It is a tragedy that this kind of political philosophy is so overlooked. Carol Gould is one of the few authors out there who takes democracy seriously enough to construct a theory from it, and yet her work is often missed when reviewing the literature. Despite the fidelity of Gould's work to the democratic project she barely makes it into the democracy entry on the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy except as a foot-note. In fact the theories of democracy that are touched on in the SEP are largely restricted to liberal, neo-liberal and aristo-monarchic positions.

So why has the work of Gould and her peers been so ignored?

Personally I think the problem lies with its ambigious classification and heritage. The arguments that Gould offers are too radical to fit in with the liberalism of Rawls and Dahl yet too reformist to be discussed alongside Anarchism. Furthermore, theories of participatory democratic theory are so multifaceted in terms of their origins that it is very difficult to slot them into one singular account of modern democratic theory, ergo they are often left out. 

Pragmatically speaking, this kind of book would be very informative for those interested in anarchism: in so far as it delineates an actual modus operandi for future "liberated territories". While Gould does retain both the state and the market as methods of organisation they are so augmented by the time she re-formulates them that they can barely be considered to be the kind of things that anarchists rail against. Her view of a democratic economy, for instance, largely mirrors anarcho-syndicalism (though it is never described in such terms) and her approach to governance consists of bottom up participatory structures. In short, the market that Gould wants is a socialist one and the territorial governance that she envisions needs little tweaking to defy conventional anarchist critiques.

It's not all one way traffic though. Gould's model of democracy could learn a few things from anarchism vis-a-vis institutional practises. Her vision of democratic participation, the actual making of decisions, seems to be focused on conversations followed by, what one would assume to be, a majority vote. Her theory's defence against majoritarian tyranny and persistent minorities is simply an appeal to the democratic character of its subjects. The anarchist tradition could offer here both a model of consensus decision making and an emphasis on decentralisation in order to build a more robust systemic response to the various upsets that can result from majority rule.

The social ontology and the ethical underpinnings of her theory remind me of Susan Neiman's "Why Grow Up?": at its core there's a really invigorating vision of humans as creative beings seeking self-betterment. In line with this, the book's content rests on a moral conception of self-determination as a requirement for human self-development. Gould rejects both liberal individualism and socialistic holism for an intermediate ontology that views humans as individuals whose identities are understood, pursued and realised through social relationships.


In terms of economic justice, this social ontology provides her with a twin pronged attack. If the purpose of freedom is self-development then this defends both "welfarism" and worker control of the means of production. "Welfarism" is justified on the grounds that everyone is entitled, where possible, to the resources that make self-development possible and the "rights to worker control" become justified where work is a social activity in which self-development takes place.

The book is strikingly comprehensive. "Rethinking Democracy" deals with topics as varied and concrete as the relationship between freedom and equality; the role of technical expertise in participatory democracy,  and the consequences Gould's theory has for debates surrounding global interventionism. If you want an idea of how anarchist principles might play out in a future society, but can't stand the more tendentious elements of anarchist rhetoric, then this is a worthwhile read.