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Ben's Reviews > The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
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If you skipped your Systems, Statistics, or Random Variables classes in college, or if you think you know more than everyone else on Wall Street, then read this book. It will reaffirm what you already know. To the rest of you: this book will reaffirm what you thought you knew when you were 5 or 6...with an updated vocabulary.
I put this book down after the first chapter, but thought I would give it another chance, that I was being unfair. When I read the second chapter (which is a metaphor for what Taleb thinks is him) I puked in my shirt. This man is the most conceited person I think I've discovered through reading his garbage hypothesis. If I met Taleb, I would recommend that he read some other theories on random variables (why does he use Gaussian distribution as the only example of random distribution?), systems theory, and the scientific theory. He apparently was sleeping though these discussions.
So, not only was this book difficult to read due to the fact that Taleb was obsessed with how right he was, but the missing details and theories and general disregard for EVERYTHING that happened before him forced me to close this book, hand it to my roommate to sell on Amazon, take a few days to cool off, and then write this review.
Thank God I am not an editor.
I put this book down after the first chapter, but thought I would give it another chance, that I was being unfair. When I read the second chapter (which is a metaphor for what Taleb thinks is him) I puked in my shirt. This man is the most conceited person I think I've discovered through reading his garbage hypothesis. If I met Taleb, I would recommend that he read some other theories on random variables (why does he use Gaussian distribution as the only example of random distribution?), systems theory, and the scientific theory. He apparently was sleeping though these discussions.
So, not only was this book difficult to read due to the fact that Taleb was obsessed with how right he was, but the missing details and theories and general disregard for EVERYTHING that happened before him forced me to close this book, hand it to my roommate to sell on Amazon, take a few days to cool off, and then write this review.
Thank God I am not an editor.
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Reading Progress
March 8, 2008
– Shelved
Started Reading
April 8, 2008
– Shelved as:
shit
April 8, 2008
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-11 of 11 (11 new)
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Willo
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Apr 10, 2008 11:03AM
I absolutely LOVE your reviews. Keep it up!
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nice scathing review. I had heard good things about his other book "Fooled by Randomness", now I'm not going to bother with it. I think I already grasp his point.
Thanks! I'll stop reading when I'm dead. Or blind.
Yeah. Point: Black Swans = Random events that when you look at the wrong variables, but think they're the right variables, make the outcome unpredictable. He would recommend looking at water quality in Kansas, and wondering why the change in water quality didn't cause the prediction of 9/11. Idiot.
the reason he attacks the gaussian is because that's what is commonly used in financial modeling. the central limit theorem and the gaussian are indispensable to business statistics (trust me i spent an entire semester in b-school toiling over normal distributions). these are the tools people who are out there working with your portfolio are using. taleb is just trying to rein in people misapplying the gaussian and then making decisions based on faulty analysis.
Ryan wrote: "the reason he attacks the gaussian is because that's what is commonly used in financial modeling. the central limit theorem and the gaussian are indispensable to business statistics (trust me i spe..."As an engineer, I'm not as familiar with economics. I know only what I can easily reject, which is popular. You're from Chicago, so I probably don't have to explain much about that.
Perhaps since my background is based more in math than economics, I look at these problems differently.
If the audience was economists who currently subscribe to or reject Gaussian distribution, he may have a valid argument. For everyone outside of this niche, it's a little short sighted.
Regardless, it seems we both agree that his tone and conceit were negatives in this book. He would've done a lot better at getting me to read his book had he been a better story teller.
I like to read trade journals and fiction without preference, but the most interesting stories are those that tell a story in order to relay complex subject matter.
Talib did not do this (for me).
For those two reasons, I felt like I was wasting my time, and I actually put the book down. This is something I rarely do.
To clear something up: my portfolio isn't managed by the people you're thinking about. Statistics aren't my highest priority when I invest. Triple bottom line may be a new key phrase, but it's something that makes more sense to me. I know you were speaking generally, but I wanted to clear it up.
Also, you should check out systems theory and random variables theory. You might find some things that other people haven't yet when relating the math to economics.
hey... im all for socially responsible investing. can you recommend some good books for the layman that deal with systems theory and random variables theory?
Only what I've read (college textbooks):Signals and Systems (2nd Edition) (Prentice-Hall Signal Processing Series)
Probability, Statistics, and Random Processes For Electrical Engineering (3rd Edition)
Dude you need to read more than 2 chapters to comment intelligently.
So, I'm just into chapter 3 and wondering whether to continue. I've already got the key point: what a Black Swan event is.Now, i'm wondering whether I need to wade through the rest of the book to understand more.
I kinda agree with you, as an engineer, I find his mathematical outreach highly constrained to a few personal favorites. If you want a good book in epistemology or chaos theory, look elsewhere!
