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.    

Consent as a Foundation of Justice: It's not as straight-forward as some would think.

Consider these five examples.



Example A:

Kirsten the store clerk is working late at a petrol station one evening when an armed robber comes through the door and points a gun at her head. The armed robber tells her to hand over the cash or she will be killed.

Kirsten agrees to hand over the cash.




Example B:

Paul gets lost walking in the desert and, through no fault of his own, is bitten by a rattlesnake. He runs to get help and after an hour of desperate searching comes across a man who sells rattlesnake anti-venom.

The salesman informs Paul that the salesman is the only one around for miles and it is an absolute certainty that without the purchasing of anti-venom Paul will die.

The salesman tells Paul that Paul must not only pay the market value for the anti-venom (100$) but Paul must also allow the salesman to urinate in Paul’s mouth.

Paul chooses the latter.




Example C:

Mark is a right-wing libertarian. Mark despises the fact that he is taxed by a government which he deems to be incompetent and injust.

One day a friend mentions to Mark that there are large areas in the Antarctic wilderness where no government influence is present. Mark is then left with a choice. He can either pay for the travel costs (Mark is very wealthy) and live a life free from government or he can choose to continue living with governments that tax him and misallocate what is, in Marks eyes, his money.

Mark chooses to stay put.


 
Example D:

Sam and Mick are co-workers. Mick is offered the opportunity to work in the same office space as Sam where Mick will have access to better facilities that will make his work more productive. However Sam has a personal vendetta against Mick and is liable to make rude comments and act in a dismissive or insulting manner towards Mick, making Mick's work life more stressful.

Mick declines the offer to work in the same office space as Sam.



Example E:

Sally likes Rose and wants to go on a date with her. One day Sally asks Rose if she would like to get coffee with her next saturday.

Rose says yes.

————

All five of these examples present situations in which an actor provides some form of consent or non-consent, in the sense that they agree to co-operate or not co-operate with another actor or proposal that has been offered to them.


Obviously, that is not to say that all five examples are examples of "genuine consent". It would seem that. at the very least, in one or two of the examples consent was obtained by nefarious and immoral means that would, depending on your moral outlook, invalidate the given consent.


The tricky question is what is genuine consent and when does it happen?

Often, especially when it comes to sex, genuine consent is characterised as "enthusiastic and informed consent" but I do wonder how far the addition of "enthusiasm" really gets us.

I mean sure in the bedroom if someone is not enthusiastic about the sex which their partner aims to initiate with them then that is a pause for concern, but outside of the bedroom how realistic is it to equate legitimate consent with enthusiasm?


Surely in an economic context, or even of the context of house-hold chores, it's reasonable to presume there are some arrangements which I can legitimately consent to despite not being enthusiastic about their undertaking. I can agree with flat-mates to hoover the lounge on a sunday, mop the kitchen on a wednesday and not play music without headphones after 10pm without actually enthusiastically wanting to do any of those things.


So what are the factors that go into making consent genuine outside of enthusiasm?
Well what seems to be important when judging the five cases above is context: Is there a threat of violence? What penalties will the agent incur if they do not consent? Are the penalties proportionate/reasonable?

The individual speech of act of consent, the mere utterance of "I agree" or "I will", is morally neutral. We can't discern whether or not that act of consent is respectable until we are given information about the context in which it was uttered.  


That is not to say that consent isn't important. Even as a utilitarian I hold to the idea that providing people with the ability to choose (or consent) between various options is the best if not most pragmatic method available to facilitate other peoples happiness.


All of this is just to point to the problem with taking a prima facie approach to consent as it relates to justice. Just social and political relations include consent. To say that a just world is a world in which we all consent to the institutions that affect our lives seems fairly straightforward. However the specification of what kinds of economic, political and social contexts are capable of giving sufficient grounds to consent requires a great deal more theorising.

Schopenhauer, Sushi and Choice

Permit for now the metaphysical absurdities contained below but I think it will suffice as an entertaining in-road to today's topic.

Consider the following:
1. I am Cut-Throat and Clueless.
2. Cut-Throat and Clueless has the property of loving sushi.

3. If Cut-Throat and Clueless lived in 1920's England would Cut-Throat and Clueless like sushi?

Again, to those of you who deal primarily in modal realism and temporally located identity problems I beg of you to stay your hands from the comments section. This doesn't need to end the way that you think it should!

Of course I do like sushi but part of the reason I enjoy sushi is that I tried it in the year of 2010 and discovered that I loved it. Up until that fateful day when my train home was delayed and I decided to pop into a "Yo! Sushi" Restaurant, I had no real opinion on it other than it was some sort of japanese food using fish and rice.

One way to approach the question of whether I would like Sushi while living in 1920's England is to take a hard nominalist approach and just say that I cannot be the same person as someone existing in 1920's England; I possess no abstract identity that can be properly carried across parallel universes and therefore the question is pointless.

Now I am sure that if I were better educated on the topic and more motivated to write about meta-physics then all sorts of interesting things could be said here; however that is not the case so I will drop this line of thought here and leave with a take away:

"I would not like Sushi if I lived in 1920's England because I would have no idea what Sushi is. Even if I knew what sushi was I wouldn't be able to form a desire for it as no one will offer it to me."

Let's elucidate further....

Schopenhauer in his essay "On the Freedom of the Will" explores the idea that while humans can be free to pursue what they want, they cannot choose what they want in the first place. The question then becomes "What then is it that decides what I want in the first place?".

Now, there are a whole host of different answers to this question, with varying levels of saliency. Biology, for example, would be one factor to consider but what I want to discuss is more rooted in our environment. 

By environment I'm not necessarily talking about nurture but about the broader possibilities and experiences that are offered to us as a result of our material conditions. That is to say that while you may want a whole host of things you can only demonstrate a desire, in the measurable economic sense, for what is materially possible for you to consume or attain.

It's a combination of factors that decide whether or not a product, in the concrete sense, is desired by consumers. 

We all want jet-packs, presumably also ones that are safe, but since they are neither available, or at least not to everyone, we don't go around actively desiring jet-packs. We have an abstract want for them but no real measurable desire that can be observed in our consumer behaviours. If you just looked at what people bought you would have no idea as to whether or not designing recreational jet-packs was worthwhile or something that people would like to see happen. Hell, you might not be able to tell even once you started asking people considering all the potentially unforeseen consequences of a jet-pack based society.

In the context of parentalism in the market place I think this influence that the market has on shaping our choices is very important to acknowledge. Putting aside the unfortunate "parental" connotations of parentalism there is a huge potential for re-imagining human freedom by recognising the way in which an environment shapes our choices.

Another example:

While studying in Sweden I ate McDonalds almost every day. In a crude fashion one might come to the conclusion that that means I was perfectly happy eating McDonalds*. In truth the reason I managed to sample almost every meal offered by Mr Ronald McDonald was not out of loyalty to the brand but because I often worked late into the night and the only place serving food at 4am was the 24/7 McDonalds that I passed everynight on my walk home. 

In many ways if I could click my fingers and swap the McDonalds with a 24/7 Salad bar I would; I knew that McDonalds was killing me and at one point it even put me in hospital after sending my stomach acidity sky-rocketing (another story for another day). 

Even if I wouldn't click my fingers at 4 in the morning while craving calories I might acknowledge that although 4am me will want McDonalds, I shouldn't be allowed to have it and indeed both future hopstial-bed-ridden me and current me want to stop him from having McDonalds.

The choices we make in life are not just the product of our innate desires. They are also shaped and directed by what products are on offer and our flawed perceptions of them**.

A big part of launching a new brand of "whatever" isn't just proving that it satisfies a want but in convincing prospective buyers that they want it in the first place. This is more often than not done by controlling the consumers exposure to it in such a way that its presence becomes ubiquitus and then desirable.

  

Parentalism often gets a bad rap as the tool of the nanny state. It's hallmark seems to be removing our right to choose as a part of interventions dreamed up by faceless bureaucracies. I would suggest alternatively that this notion of acknowledging the effects of accessibility and marketing on who we are and what we choose presents a whole new radical way of thinking about choice. 

Advocating for some form of parentalism, though maybe not one that is exercised through the authority of the state, could offer a whole new host of freedoms including "the freedom to choose what you want to choose".

* Incidently ,there is nothing more morbidly entertaining than catching yourself chewing over the evils of global capitalism with a Big-Mac between your jaws.

** I swear there is no better counter-argument to the assertion that markets naturally weed out bad products than pointing to the existence of homeopathy.