31 Talebian Meditations, Part 3
This is the final part of a three-part series on The Bed of Procrustes (2nd Penguin ed., 2016). In case you need a reminder or you started here, the goal of this exercise was to pick at random (with the help of technology) an aphorism from N.N. Taleb's book for each of the 31 days of January, and write a brief reflection on it.
Here are the first two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. Now, let us continue.
21. "Contra the prevailing belief, "success" isn't being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies." (p. 133)
Humans naturally respond to status, and the fact that status is relative means that hierarchies, whether formal or informal, are nearly inevitable. So, I'm not sure if it's possible to be truly outside all hierarchies without being a hermit... Yet you can choose not to deliberately climb higher on any particularly visible hierarchy. Rather than judging your success by what others have accomplished, you can strive for some higher goal (say, working to reduce existential risk). As Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: "Life is not graded on a curve. [...] There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse."
22. "Unless we manipulate our surroundings, we have as little control over what and whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts." (p. 74)
While individual personality plays a role in how we respond to situations, the environment itself -- including the people around us -- certainly influences our thoughts, feelings and actions in many subtle ways. For example, psychologists have known for a while now about the phenomenon of priming: when being exposed to a stimulus makes related concepts more mentally available (although not all priming experiments have been replicated). And the premise of Nudge (a book I recently finished and shall review soon) is that changing the way a choice is presented can tip the odds in favor of a particular option. So, if you can, try to organize your environment so that it helps you.
23. "To understand "progress": all places we call ugly are both man-made and modern (Newark), never natural or historical (Rome)." (p. 81)
Putting aside the point that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think a lot of folks complain about modernistic architecture for being overly sterile, standardized, and sometimes tasteless. On the one hand, the comparison with historical architecture is not entirely fair, because over the centuries the ugly and dysfunctional buildings were the ones most likely to be torn down, so they didn't make it into the sample of preserved buildings we have today. (Ironically, Taleb writes about the survivorship bias in his books.) On the other hand, it is still true that property developers build ugly structures for the sake of lowering costs or for the sake of being "avant-garde". And our mental well-being seems to be improved by contact with nature, which tends to be lacking in congested city centers. So, we moderns can certainly use some aesthetic inspiration from nature and from the ancients; yet in other ways there has surely been progress (for example, today's structures are better insulated, more earthquake-proof, more accessible to the handicapped, and so on).
24. "The most depressing aspect of the lives of the couples you watch surreptitiously arguing in restaurants is that they are almost always unaware of the true subject of argument." (p. 45)
If real estate is stereotypically about location, location, location... then relationships are stereotypically about communication, communication, communication. Of course, there is a kernel of truth: your partner cannot read your mind, and vice versa. I suspect many arguments happen either because one person assumes the worst (thus putting the other side on the defensive) or doesn't take the other's concerns seriously (to avoid bad news, which naturally backfires). As Elliot Aronson might say, an honest discussion of one's feelings without accusing the other ("straight talk") can do wonders. But there is another layer here: perhaps the partners aren't even aware of their own needs. For instance, a boyfriend might start scolding his girlfriend for being late, but the hidden source of anger may be his sexual frustrations.
25. "In the medical and social domains, treatment should never be equivalent to silencing symptoms." (p. 111)
It is common knowledge that treating the symptoms of a condition is not the same as treating the root cause. Yet, treating the symptoms can be useful as palliative care, e.g. to reduce pain and/or distress, helping the patient resume their daily life. Further, there are some conditions for which we do not currently have a cure -- and even if we were talking only about people on their deathbeds, that would already be an exception to Taleb's statement of "never". But I think there is some merit to the idea that masking a symptom can make one forget about the underlying issue -- until one day it blows up. Similarly for social problems like crime and poverty, focusing on lowering the statistics without regard for how the problem came about in the first place won't necessarily soothe the social tensions simmering beneath the surface. This raises a question: in the absence of a "cure", when is treating societal "symptoms" the best we can do?
26. "If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more." (p. 147)
This one is rather cryptic. Is Taleb confessing to being the kind of person his detractors say he is? Or is he simply making a point about how much some people hate him? Usually, one would think that enmity is based on misunderstanding, such that getting to know someone better would increase one's empathy for them and thus reduce the enmity. (Taleb himself wrote an aphorism about how people amplify dissimilarities with strangers; see #19 here.) But perhaps when it comes to people who truly are different, a lack of knowledge (of the extent of the difference) can help keep things polite. Another interpretation: the detractors could simply be envious of Taleb, and would be even more so if they found out about his wealth, lifestyle, or any number of things we can only guess at.
27. "The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself." (p. 3)
In extreme cases, I think you'd be more afraid to contradict an authority figure or a group consensus than yourself; the forces of both authority and conformity are discussed by Stuart Sutherland in his book Irrationality. That being said, it is certainly true that under normal circumstances, we humans really hate being inconsistent with our past words and deeds -- especially since it makes us look like hypocrites, flip-floppers or liars. Psychologists have long studied consistency effects, including (famously) cognitive dissonance. There is, of course, the tendency to look selectively for evidence that confirms our beliefs (confirmation bias). And I think it's plausible that having a strong sense of identity makes you afraid to contradict yourself, since (i) it would be emotionally painful to stab the identity in the back; and (ii) thinking you know who you are is more comfortable than living with uncertainty.
28. "Critics may appear to blame the author for not writing the book they wanted to read; but in truth they are blaming him for writing the book they wanted, but were unable, to write." (p. 61)
This aphorism is quite cynical in that it suggests that people only criticize authors because they're jealous. Of course, the critic may very well be jealous: for example, the author might have beaten them to the punch regarding a particular book idea. That still leaves the question of whether the critic truly believes that the book doesn't live up to expectations (and they think they could do better), or the critic secretly admires the book yet still feels the need to attack the author. In the latter case, there might be some self-esteem issues. As Eliezer Yudkowsky once said: "When someone finds an excuse not to try to do better, they often refuse to concede that anyone else can try to do better, and every mode of improvement is thereafter their enemy... ." But we need not accept the premise; people can also criticize books without wanting to be writers themselves.
29. "A mathematician starts with a problem and creates a solution; a consultant starts by offering a "solution" and creates a problem." (p. 119)
Robin Hanson wrote a popular blog post titled Too Much Consulting? in which he speculates that management consultants, by virtue of their prestige and impartiality, primarily serve as tools for executives to get buy-in from others in the company. Otherwise: "How could such quick-made advice from ignorant recent grads be worth millions?" (Hanson's words). Similarly, in the aphorism Taleb questions the value added by consultants by putting "solution" in scare quotes. Of course, there are some obvious differences with mathematics: firstly, mathematical solutions are objectively verifiable, whereas management solutions are more contestable; and secondly, mathematicians are typically employed in steady jobs, whereas consultants tend to hop from client to client. This means that they can't always wait for clients to approach them, but sometimes need to solicit clients by "making up" a problem. Additionally, if they get billed per hour of consulting, the financial incentive is not necessarily to provide an easy and quick solution. To be fair, many jobs can be compared unfavorably to mathematics.
30. "I recently had a meal in a fancy restaurant with complicated dishes with fancy names ($125 per person), then enjoyed a pizza afterward, straight out of the oven, $7.95. I wonder why the pizza isn't twenty times the price of the complicated dish, since I'd rather have the former -- at any price -- over the latter." (p. 104)
This anecdote reminds me of Taleb's sushi story from a different aphorism (#16 here), also about domain dependence. It's a nice illustration of how a fancy restaurant and a pizza restaurant are not perfect substitutes -- consumers approach them with different expectations, perhaps visiting them on different occasions too. Something that is supposed to be fancy is expected to be expensive (and is considered appropriate for e.g. festive occasions). Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler argue that expectations, descriptive language (e.g. calling something "artisanal"), consumption rituals, and prices can all change our perceptions of reality, influencing the value we attach to experiences. Thus, even if many people would prefer pizza with Coca-Cola over a complicated dish with Champagne, they somehow feel like the latter is worth more money in the heat of the moment. Is this wrong? Well, enjoyment may not be the only decision criterion when it comes to food and drink, but it certainly seems more relevant than much of the other stuff.
31. "To understand how something works, figure out how to break it." (p. 98)
And so we come to our final aphorism... This one very much fits Taleb's style of negative advice, i.e. what not to do, as well as Popper's falsificationism, i.e. what is not true. By studying how something breaks or malfunctions, you come to understand the boundaries of its operation -- you map out the proverbial crevasses in the glacier so that you can safely traverse it. Understanding diseases and psychoses is a quicker route to understanding the body than is inspecting a healthy, well-adjusted person. Likewise, trying to hack/exploit a software program might teach you more about how it's made than would merely using it for its intended purpose. I suppose that thinking about how you would escape from prison would also help you build more secure prisons. There are certainly more examples. The point is that identifying a failure mode reveals something essential about a system's function. Recall the aphorism from before: "Stiglitz understands everything about economics except for tail risks, which is like knowing everything about flight safety except for crashes" (p. 126).
***
The Bed of Procrustes is different from any book I've read recently; it's basically like a collection of Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes. It spans a wide range of topics, including religion, art, philosophy, economics, literature, ethics, and mathematics. Across these topics, a common strain of thought is Taleb's disdain for modernity (whether it be "unmanly" technologies, or the "prisons" of employment, commutes and gyms). Another is his dislike of so-called nerdiness (exemplified by professors, atheists and other folks he calls "suckers", although he seems more tolerant of mathematicians and philosophers than social scientists and journalists).
More serious issues include that the book sometimes gives dubious advice, for example: "The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality -- without exploiting them for fun and profit" (p. 14). Exploiting them is the kind of thing that the cons in Maria Konnikova's book might do. Trying to do better (in the spirit of Tsuyoku) might be more constructive. Another issue in The Bed of Procrustes, albeit a minor one, is that a couple of aphorisms are repetitive; for example, "We find it to be in extremely bad taste for individuals to boast of their accomplishments; but when countries do so we call it "national pride"" (p. 88) and again, "We viciously accept narcissism in nation-states, while repressing it in individuals: complexity exposes the system's shaky moral foundations" (p. 133). Other aphorisms contradict each other -- take for instance one on page 34, which advises the reader to "talk to no ordinary man over forty", and Taleb's insistence elsewhere on the beauty of age. Or, compare the one on page 41 ("I have the fondest memories of time spent in places called ugly...") to Taleb disapprovingly calling modern places ugly in aphorism #23 above. But I suppose Taleb would reply that he is, like any human, complex and not always consistent.
For the most part, the author does a good job of illustrating some common Procrustean Beds in life: the unseen forces in a situation have a big influence on us; the problems that we try to solve are often not the true problems; people are more inconsistent than they realize; practice tends to beat theory (especially when skills are hard to teach in school); and success in some domains (e.g. plane safety) is simply an absence of disaster. The book is also sprinkled with a wry sense of humor: "The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary" (p. 51).
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, and I even got some inspiration for a "book of Eliezer quotes" (what will come of the idea, I don't know). But compared to the other books in Nassim Taleb's Incerto, The Bed of Procrustes is less significant both in terms of what the reader gains from it, and how well it explains the author's worldview. Thus, I lean towards giving it a lower rating than the others I have reviewed -- say, 3 out of 5 stars. In conclusion, this is not the book I'd use to introduce someone to Taleb's work. Nevertheless, if you are already a fan of Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes is a poetic cherry on top.
Here are the first two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. Now, let us continue.
***
21. "Contra the prevailing belief, "success" isn't being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies." (p. 133)
Humans naturally respond to status, and the fact that status is relative means that hierarchies, whether formal or informal, are nearly inevitable. So, I'm not sure if it's possible to be truly outside all hierarchies without being a hermit... Yet you can choose not to deliberately climb higher on any particularly visible hierarchy. Rather than judging your success by what others have accomplished, you can strive for some higher goal (say, working to reduce existential risk). As Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: "Life is not graded on a curve. [...] There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse."
22. "Unless we manipulate our surroundings, we have as little control over what and whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts." (p. 74)
While individual personality plays a role in how we respond to situations, the environment itself -- including the people around us -- certainly influences our thoughts, feelings and actions in many subtle ways. For example, psychologists have known for a while now about the phenomenon of priming: when being exposed to a stimulus makes related concepts more mentally available (although not all priming experiments have been replicated). And the premise of Nudge (a book I recently finished and shall review soon) is that changing the way a choice is presented can tip the odds in favor of a particular option. So, if you can, try to organize your environment so that it helps you.
23. "To understand "progress": all places we call ugly are both man-made and modern (Newark), never natural or historical (Rome)." (p. 81)
Putting aside the point that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think a lot of folks complain about modernistic architecture for being overly sterile, standardized, and sometimes tasteless. On the one hand, the comparison with historical architecture is not entirely fair, because over the centuries the ugly and dysfunctional buildings were the ones most likely to be torn down, so they didn't make it into the sample of preserved buildings we have today. (Ironically, Taleb writes about the survivorship bias in his books.) On the other hand, it is still true that property developers build ugly structures for the sake of lowering costs or for the sake of being "avant-garde". And our mental well-being seems to be improved by contact with nature, which tends to be lacking in congested city centers. So, we moderns can certainly use some aesthetic inspiration from nature and from the ancients; yet in other ways there has surely been progress (for example, today's structures are better insulated, more earthquake-proof, more accessible to the handicapped, and so on).
24. "The most depressing aspect of the lives of the couples you watch surreptitiously arguing in restaurants is that they are almost always unaware of the true subject of argument." (p. 45)
If real estate is stereotypically about location, location, location... then relationships are stereotypically about communication, communication, communication. Of course, there is a kernel of truth: your partner cannot read your mind, and vice versa. I suspect many arguments happen either because one person assumes the worst (thus putting the other side on the defensive) or doesn't take the other's concerns seriously (to avoid bad news, which naturally backfires). As Elliot Aronson might say, an honest discussion of one's feelings without accusing the other ("straight talk") can do wonders. But there is another layer here: perhaps the partners aren't even aware of their own needs. For instance, a boyfriend might start scolding his girlfriend for being late, but the hidden source of anger may be his sexual frustrations.
25. "In the medical and social domains, treatment should never be equivalent to silencing symptoms." (p. 111)
It is common knowledge that treating the symptoms of a condition is not the same as treating the root cause. Yet, treating the symptoms can be useful as palliative care, e.g. to reduce pain and/or distress, helping the patient resume their daily life. Further, there are some conditions for which we do not currently have a cure -- and even if we were talking only about people on their deathbeds, that would already be an exception to Taleb's statement of "never". But I think there is some merit to the idea that masking a symptom can make one forget about the underlying issue -- until one day it blows up. Similarly for social problems like crime and poverty, focusing on lowering the statistics without regard for how the problem came about in the first place won't necessarily soothe the social tensions simmering beneath the surface. This raises a question: in the absence of a "cure", when is treating societal "symptoms" the best we can do?
26. "If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more." (p. 147)
This one is rather cryptic. Is Taleb confessing to being the kind of person his detractors say he is? Or is he simply making a point about how much some people hate him? Usually, one would think that enmity is based on misunderstanding, such that getting to know someone better would increase one's empathy for them and thus reduce the enmity. (Taleb himself wrote an aphorism about how people amplify dissimilarities with strangers; see #19 here.) But perhaps when it comes to people who truly are different, a lack of knowledge (of the extent of the difference) can help keep things polite. Another interpretation: the detractors could simply be envious of Taleb, and would be even more so if they found out about his wealth, lifestyle, or any number of things we can only guess at.
27. "The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself." (p. 3)
In extreme cases, I think you'd be more afraid to contradict an authority figure or a group consensus than yourself; the forces of both authority and conformity are discussed by Stuart Sutherland in his book Irrationality. That being said, it is certainly true that under normal circumstances, we humans really hate being inconsistent with our past words and deeds -- especially since it makes us look like hypocrites, flip-floppers or liars. Psychologists have long studied consistency effects, including (famously) cognitive dissonance. There is, of course, the tendency to look selectively for evidence that confirms our beliefs (confirmation bias). And I think it's plausible that having a strong sense of identity makes you afraid to contradict yourself, since (i) it would be emotionally painful to stab the identity in the back; and (ii) thinking you know who you are is more comfortable than living with uncertainty.
28. "Critics may appear to blame the author for not writing the book they wanted to read; but in truth they are blaming him for writing the book they wanted, but were unable, to write." (p. 61)
This aphorism is quite cynical in that it suggests that people only criticize authors because they're jealous. Of course, the critic may very well be jealous: for example, the author might have beaten them to the punch regarding a particular book idea. That still leaves the question of whether the critic truly believes that the book doesn't live up to expectations (and they think they could do better), or the critic secretly admires the book yet still feels the need to attack the author. In the latter case, there might be some self-esteem issues. As Eliezer Yudkowsky once said: "When someone finds an excuse not to try to do better, they often refuse to concede that anyone else can try to do better, and every mode of improvement is thereafter their enemy... ." But we need not accept the premise; people can also criticize books without wanting to be writers themselves.
29. "A mathematician starts with a problem and creates a solution; a consultant starts by offering a "solution" and creates a problem." (p. 119)
Robin Hanson wrote a popular blog post titled Too Much Consulting? in which he speculates that management consultants, by virtue of their prestige and impartiality, primarily serve as tools for executives to get buy-in from others in the company. Otherwise: "How could such quick-made advice from ignorant recent grads be worth millions?" (Hanson's words). Similarly, in the aphorism Taleb questions the value added by consultants by putting "solution" in scare quotes. Of course, there are some obvious differences with mathematics: firstly, mathematical solutions are objectively verifiable, whereas management solutions are more contestable; and secondly, mathematicians are typically employed in steady jobs, whereas consultants tend to hop from client to client. This means that they can't always wait for clients to approach them, but sometimes need to solicit clients by "making up" a problem. Additionally, if they get billed per hour of consulting, the financial incentive is not necessarily to provide an easy and quick solution. To be fair, many jobs can be compared unfavorably to mathematics.
30. "I recently had a meal in a fancy restaurant with complicated dishes with fancy names ($125 per person), then enjoyed a pizza afterward, straight out of the oven, $7.95. I wonder why the pizza isn't twenty times the price of the complicated dish, since I'd rather have the former -- at any price -- over the latter." (p. 104)
This anecdote reminds me of Taleb's sushi story from a different aphorism (#16 here), also about domain dependence. It's a nice illustration of how a fancy restaurant and a pizza restaurant are not perfect substitutes -- consumers approach them with different expectations, perhaps visiting them on different occasions too. Something that is supposed to be fancy is expected to be expensive (and is considered appropriate for e.g. festive occasions). Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler argue that expectations, descriptive language (e.g. calling something "artisanal"), consumption rituals, and prices can all change our perceptions of reality, influencing the value we attach to experiences. Thus, even if many people would prefer pizza with Coca-Cola over a complicated dish with Champagne, they somehow feel like the latter is worth more money in the heat of the moment. Is this wrong? Well, enjoyment may not be the only decision criterion when it comes to food and drink, but it certainly seems more relevant than much of the other stuff.
31. "To understand how something works, figure out how to break it." (p. 98)
And so we come to our final aphorism... This one very much fits Taleb's style of negative advice, i.e. what not to do, as well as Popper's falsificationism, i.e. what is not true. By studying how something breaks or malfunctions, you come to understand the boundaries of its operation -- you map out the proverbial crevasses in the glacier so that you can safely traverse it. Understanding diseases and psychoses is a quicker route to understanding the body than is inspecting a healthy, well-adjusted person. Likewise, trying to hack/exploit a software program might teach you more about how it's made than would merely using it for its intended purpose. I suppose that thinking about how you would escape from prison would also help you build more secure prisons. There are certainly more examples. The point is that identifying a failure mode reveals something essential about a system's function. Recall the aphorism from before: "Stiglitz understands everything about economics except for tail risks, which is like knowing everything about flight safety except for crashes" (p. 126).
***
In the notice section before the aphorisms, Taleb suggests that the reader select them randomly. That was a key part of this exercise. Did I read these 31 aphorisms in random order? Yes, it looks like it:
However, it is not clear what the advantage of this approach is, unless you don't plan to read the whole book and want a representative sample. One could argue that it's better to read it chapter by chapter, since each chapter deals with a particular "theme", and you then get to understand Taleb's perspective on that theme a little better. Then again, perhaps a random sequence helps you make connections between seemingly disparate subjects... In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to this. For example, #27 above is about being afraid to contradict oneself; the preceding aphorism #26 can potentially be explained by Taleb's detractors being afraid to contradict themselves by becoming more approving.
The author's advice to read no more than four aphorisms in one sitting is also interesting but disputable. On the one hand, they are supposed to make you think, which should take time. On the other hand, not every aphorism is equally profound. Reading the hundreds of aphorisms this way would take too long; perhaps a compromise is to read the book "normally", bookmark or note down those aphorisms you find insightful, and return to them later on.
***
At the start of February, I began to read the whole book from start to finish. Below are some of the aphorisms that I personally found to be intriguing:
- "I suspect that they put Socrates to death because there is something terribly unattractive, alienating, and nonhuman in thinking with too much clarity." (p. 5)
- "Hatred is love with a typo somewhere in the computer code, correctable but very hard to find." (p. 13)
- "I went to a happiness conference; researchers looked very unhappy." (p. 33)
- "There are two types of people: those who try to win and those who try to win arguments. They are never the same." (p. 46)
- "Finer men tolerate others' small inconsistencies though not the large ones; the weak tolerate others' large inconsistencies though not small ones." (p. 79)
- "Virtue is when the income you wish to show the tax agency exceeds what you wish to show your neighbor." (p. 94)
- "The stock market, in brief: participants are calmly waiting in line to be slaughtered while thinking it is for a Broadway show." (p. 122)
- "By all means, avoid words -- threats, complaints, justification, narratives, reframing, attempts to win arguments, supplications; avoid words!" (p. 135)
- "Love without sacrifice is like theft." (p. 143)
- "Wisdom isn't about understanding things (and people); it is knowing what they can do to you." (p. 148)
Not every aphorism in The Bed of Procrustes is equally thought-provoking, but there are enough of them in the book that the reader will probably find a few to like.
***
The Bed of Procrustes is different from any book I've read recently; it's basically like a collection of Nassim Nicholas Taleb quotes. It spans a wide range of topics, including religion, art, philosophy, economics, literature, ethics, and mathematics. Across these topics, a common strain of thought is Taleb's disdain for modernity (whether it be "unmanly" technologies, or the "prisons" of employment, commutes and gyms). Another is his dislike of so-called nerdiness (exemplified by professors, atheists and other folks he calls "suckers", although he seems more tolerant of mathematicians and philosophers than social scientists and journalists).
For Taleb, freedom means having the ability to do things without justification, to "waste time" doing nothing and not feel guilty, to take naps (or even a six-day sabbatical), to say "fuck you", and to be free from competition. In addition to freedom, his other values include heroism, courage, elegance, grandeur, erudition, and wisdom. So, perhaps his skepticism toward modernity is not too surprising if we assume the premise that people today are "owned" by their salaried jobs, mortgages, cars and various technologies, and that they start to "decompose" after college (or age 30, depending on which aphorism you pick)."Academics are only useful when they try to be useless (say, as in mathematics and philosophy) and dangerous when they try to be useful." (p. 101)
While you could argue that Taleb goes too far, it seems to be the case that more and more people are talking about the adverse effects of technology (ranging from Tristan Harris's Center for Humane Technology, to Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism and Nir Eyal's Indistractable). Mindfulness meditation is increasingly popular, and there is a movement around the idea of financial independence and retiring early (FIRE). Taleb may yet have some company."For so many, instead of looking for "cause of death" when they expire, we should be looking for "cause of life" when they are still around." (p. 48)
More serious issues include that the book sometimes gives dubious advice, for example: "The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality -- without exploiting them for fun and profit" (p. 14). Exploiting them is the kind of thing that the cons in Maria Konnikova's book might do. Trying to do better (in the spirit of Tsuyoku) might be more constructive. Another issue in The Bed of Procrustes, albeit a minor one, is that a couple of aphorisms are repetitive; for example, "We find it to be in extremely bad taste for individuals to boast of their accomplishments; but when countries do so we call it "national pride"" (p. 88) and again, "We viciously accept narcissism in nation-states, while repressing it in individuals: complexity exposes the system's shaky moral foundations" (p. 133). Other aphorisms contradict each other -- take for instance one on page 34, which advises the reader to "talk to no ordinary man over forty", and Taleb's insistence elsewhere on the beauty of age. Or, compare the one on page 41 ("I have the fondest memories of time spent in places called ugly...") to Taleb disapprovingly calling modern places ugly in aphorism #23 above. But I suppose Taleb would reply that he is, like any human, complex and not always consistent.
For the most part, the author does a good job of illustrating some common Procrustean Beds in life: the unseen forces in a situation have a big influence on us; the problems that we try to solve are often not the true problems; people are more inconsistent than they realize; practice tends to beat theory (especially when skills are hard to teach in school); and success in some domains (e.g. plane safety) is simply an absence of disaster. The book is also sprinkled with a wry sense of humor: "The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary" (p. 51).
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, and I even got some inspiration for a "book of Eliezer quotes" (what will come of the idea, I don't know). But compared to the other books in Nassim Taleb's Incerto, The Bed of Procrustes is less significant both in terms of what the reader gains from it, and how well it explains the author's worldview. Thus, I lean towards giving it a lower rating than the others I have reviewed -- say, 3 out of 5 stars. In conclusion, this is not the book I'd use to introduce someone to Taleb's work. Nevertheless, if you are already a fan of Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes is a poetic cherry on top.
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