# Has anyone read...



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

_Fooled by Randomness_ by Nassim Taleb? Or anything from the _Incerto_?

What are your thoughts? Would you recommend it?


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Absolutely, I read FbR when it was published. Anybody interested in the interpretation of statistics and random events should read something by Taleb. Risk loaded with heavy consequences and "fat tails" is the usual theme. The author is something of a Black Swan himself. He is fairly active on Twitter and recently endorsed Tulsi Gabbard.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Thank you for the reply!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I would also recommend the book. As philoctetes says, Taleb is a bit of an outsider within professional investor circles. He is very open about why he feels many investors ultimately fail, and the discussions are at a relatively simple level.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> I would also recommend the book. As philoctetes says, Taleb is a bit of an outsider within professional investor circles. He is very open about why he feels many investors ultimately fail,* and the discussions are at a relatively simple level.*


Do you have any recommendations for books that cover somewhat similar topics but (perhaps) go a bit deeper? Also, I'm surprised to hear that; from what (admittedly little) I know about Taleb, he generally tries to appeal to people with all levels of technical background.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Taleb presents himself as a practicing mathematician of the actuarial stripe. He displays proofs and derivations in Mathematica on social media, sometimes to prove someone wrong about a verbal probabilistic statement in the political domain. His extreme caution on GMOs corners him against some pretty heavy hitters for the agro-tech industry. 

He is something of a mathematical Cassandra, I suppose, something I appreciate a lot but many don't. When I read FbR it was like meeting someone who made sense of some ideas I already had in my head.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Can I ask what your level of background in math / stats is (or was at the time you read FbR)?

(Maybe this discussion is better suited for PMs at this point haha)


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I'm an algorithm designer but best to to the source and read one of his books. Doesn't matter what I think.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Do you have any recommendations for books that cover somewhat similar topics but (perhaps) go a bit deeper? Also, I'm surprised to hear that; from what (admittedly little) I know about Taleb, he generally tries to appeal to people with all levels of technical background.


The book was purposely written to be more colloquial than scientific. He says, "This comes straight from the gut; it is a personal essay...not a piece of scientific reporting." You don't need to know any math although some of the ideas will undoubtedly resonate more with those who understand statistics and distributions. My background is physics with a high level of math. If you know some general aspects of, say, Gaussian distributions (bell curve), I think you'd be in good shape.

Unfortunately, I can't think of similar books that go "deeper".


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Taleb's math weaknesses are my strengths and vice versa. I never learned to work with Markov processes and statistical time series, and Taleb seems unsure of himself in complex analysis and transform theory. 

As a job interviewer, I ran across applicants who were typically stronger in engineering math. Those who knew stochastic processes would get the following question: what's the difference between Fourier analysis and time series analysis? I wasn't even sure what answer I wanted. 

One applicant had the best answer and got the job: "phase"

Another favorite that I stole from a coworker, especially good to weed out IT know-it-alls: how far can you count on your ten fingers? The correct answer is not ten..


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

philoctetes said:


> The correct answer is not ten..


I don't think it's 1023 either... our fingers are flexible for a reason. Any reasonable answer should be at least 3^10 - 1, probably higher


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Good point! I believe if you count joints 0-3 you can go to 4^10-1. 

{edit: if each joint is a bit, we go to 16^10-1! It just gets really hard to 'flip' a joint between 0 or 1...}

Then you have the toes. I keep telling people that we shouldn't build so many machines until we utilize the biological tools we were born with!

So back to Taleb - did you buy any books yet?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Not yet. I wanted to see if FbR was at my university library first, but as far as I know the one copy they had was checked out. I'll probably order it tonight.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

OK, I got a copy and am starting to read it. Looks promising so far.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

It's been a good read so far. Not as challenging as I might have hoped, but pleasurable and informative for sure.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Maybe you just need to visit a casino for a real challenge :devil:


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