The Bed of Procrustes Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Audible Audio Edition) Nassim Nicholas Taleb Sean Pratt LLC Gildan Media Books
Download As PDF : The Bed of Procrustes Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Audible Audio Edition) Nassim Nicholas Taleb Sean Pratt LLC Gildan Media Books
By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect.
The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Nassim Nicholas Taleb's view of modern civilization's hubristic side effects - modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery.
Playful and irreverent, these aphorisms will surprise you by exposing self-delusions you have been living with but never recognized. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.
The Bed of Procrustes Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Audible Audio Edition) Nassim Nicholas Taleb Sean Pratt LLC Gildan Media Books
Taleb has made a living showing lack of robustness and fragility in our use of knowledge. Indeed, Taleb's discussion and prediction of the fiscal crises of the late aughts was totally earned, and he was aptly able to show in "The Black Swan" and "Fooled by Randomness" that epistemological humility was direly needed in both science reporting and economics. This book takes these trends and turns them into aphorism. Taking cues from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and E.M. Cioran more than Nietzsche, Taleb's aphorisms are pithy and common sensical. Indeed, perhaps, often too common sensical.This is short book, easy to read, and even when you disagree with Taleb, he is humorous enough not to lose you. Indeed, I find his aphoristic writing to be easier to read stylistically than his more journalistic and extended think piece works. In many senses, these aphorisms prove that Taleb is a practical philosopher, but not necessarily a precise or consistent one. Yet the theme of the need of epistemic humility and the robustness of moral and aesthetic visions versus knowledge claims dominate the value.
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The Bed of Procrustes Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Audible Audio Edition) Nassim Nicholas Taleb Sean Pratt LLC Gildan Media Books Reviews
Taleb is one of the great nonlinear thinker of our era. For people who have heard of Fooled by Randomness and or tried to read The Black Swan and failed this is the perfect sampler of Talebism. Right now I'm slowly working my way through his latest book Antifragile and The Bed of Procrustes was the perfect easy break.
Procrustes for those who don't yet know was an ancient who only had one bed so he adjusted all of his visitors size to fit it.
A sample "Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment."
If you like maxims or aphorisms read this book.
This book was a mixed bag for me. While Taleb's aphorisms or musings , some of which are true and clever, others seem to be just filling up space. The book can be looked at in one day, but should not be hurried through and given time to think about what you are reading. If you love or hate this book it will depend on how you view the world and your belief system. This book reminds me of Dickson Watts book " Thoughts on Life " his book is much shorter, but has many true and witty remarks about life, and I think is a better book, at least for now. The reason I say this is I think this is a book that will take a few readings to grow on you. If you ever watched a movie and didn't like it only to watch it many years later and find out that it wasn't so bad after all and actually good. I think this book is like that. This book will give you insight into Taleb the man.
Not another Black Swan book, so readers of that book may be disappointed, but it has some good bits among its aphorisms, which is par for the course even with great aphorists such as Nietzsche or Wilde. I think I am beginning to get what Taleb means by "antifragility", namely a system that isn't merely robost in the face of disasters that can be anticipated as they have happened many times before, but is able to deal with the kind of unpredictable and over-sized disasters that qualify as "black swans", not to mention seizing opportunities from those rare "black swans" that are positive, such as record days on the stock exchange. After the recent meteors, we need to think this way. We've been lucky for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years, but luck is not security.
Interesting style. I like the intent of it. I like the style of it. Taleb has a good sense of humor. But it started to drag. I guess that's why he recommended only reading a page a day. A good raining day book or night stand book when you are bored with romance novels.
The collection of aphorisms (quotes, concise statements) are of the quality few other than Taleb can deliver. To have authored hundreds of them is a remarkable feat.
With that said, this book feels overpriced for what it is (relative to the similarly priced, but far denser volumes in the Incerto series). I would also recommend against the version – its format lends itself better to being consumed in small chunks, by flipping through it in physical form. It would also make a wonderful as a coffee table piece.
Taleb has a lot of great wisdom in here that I wish I would have encountered much earlier in life. This is a book I will be sharing with my children some day. It makes a lot of wise perspectives very digestible, and easily approached/absorbed. I think his phrasing and careful choice of words is also a great reminder to be as succinct and expedient as one can. I have been re-visiting this book frequently since I got it, and will likely continue to do so until it's so worn I need to order another copy. This author definitely takes a more confrontational and slightly abrasive stance to some naturally controversial subject matter in his other works. HOWEVER, do not allow the arguments and perception of his attitudes in regards to his other professional endeavors turn you away from this work. Regardless of your beliefs or conclusions about his views on statistical modeling and economics, this work is brilliant, brief, and well worth the time and money you would spend on it. I'm actually going to be ordering multiple copies as gifts for colleagues and close friends.
This book is all aphorisms bunched into chapters by topic. So no one story line or idea to follow as in his other books. At times I played a game trying to read the first part of an aphorism and guess the rest. Never got it. Being Taleb's work they are much cleverer than I am and very thought provoking. Short and enjoyable reading.
Taleb has made a living showing lack of robustness and fragility in our use of knowledge. Indeed, Taleb's discussion and prediction of the fiscal crises of the late aughts was totally earned, and he was aptly able to show in "The Black Swan" and "Fooled by Randomness" that epistemological humility was direly needed in both science reporting and economics. This book takes these trends and turns them into aphorism. Taking cues from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg and E.M. Cioran more than Nietzsche, Taleb's aphorisms are pithy and common sensical. Indeed, perhaps, often too common sensical.
This is short book, easy to read, and even when you disagree with Taleb, he is humorous enough not to lose you. Indeed, I find his aphoristic writing to be easier to read stylistically than his more journalistic and extended think piece works. In many senses, these aphorisms prove that Taleb is a practical philosopher, but not necessarily a precise or consistent one. Yet the theme of the need of epistemic humility and the robustness of moral and aesthetic visions versus knowledge claims dominate the value.
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