Genghis.Khan, thank you for the reply. May I break it down into it's various components in a bit to answer and expand it a little as you have touched on certain subjects that are dear to me.
1) My background is extremely similar to Prof. Taleb's, as we spent our formative years in the same milieu, albeit in different countries, but we speak the same languages although I also have Greek which he hasn't.
2) The Black Swan is a cry from a polymath to the world about self evident truths that a little common sense could have predicted and the world could have avoided the terrible economic implosion of 2007/2008. Alas common sense is hardly common. because like the turkey we're unaware of who is honing what ax and for what reason. But in practical terms, read the news like History should and you'll start seeing disparities between actions and mouthings. Then like all the philisophers believe the actions and not the words, you should be fine.
3) History repeats, but not as Academicians (what Taleb calls them) write. But imagine a spring, paint a line down it's one side, now stretch it a bit, you'll see that the lines are separate but nearer each other than the opposite side of the loop . That's history, when conditions start to coalesce towards a general point, it more or less repeats.
4) Human nature is basic, we all need certain things to live and be content. Those certain things are very similar whether you're Chinese, African, European or anything else, as long as you're human. There are only so many ways one can put their pants on. The problem is that Academicians who teach us, have to write books and be published, so they sprout various theories and all new minds absorb these and get lost.
5) It takes about 5 years to unlearn the 60 to 70% of useless or unworkable theories one learns at College or University for a person to become practically useful. Ok enough on Taleb and the Thanksgiving Turkey of whether it was a Black or Grey Swan situation.
6)
Sparta was always influenced by the fact that it had enslaved the Helots and was always in danger of a slave revolution. It was a social trap that the Spartans were unable to escape from until they lost to the Romans.
7)
I've read this before and I'd like you to dispassionately think on this. If you expand on the above statement, then you have just proven mathematically that the Ancients were right and that the underlying principals of star positioning affects us at the moment of birth!!! After all we're just a sack of 70% water and much more susceptible than a plastic snooker ball, no? Then hello Astrology based on higher mathematics !!! Newton would skewer you
8) BTW here is a parting shot about History and Academicians (love this Talebism). If you ever visit the Sphinx of Gizah, you'll find that it sits within an excavated bowl. Up to Carter's time in the early 20th century, the body was covered by sand. they have since excavated it and cleaned out the whole bowl. If you look at the walls of this bowl they're weathered.
Now the interesting bit. The sphinx according to the best Egyptologists fired by Nationalistic fervour, is not much older than Ramses. The walls of the wall from which the statue was dug out of show
water weathering by the best Geologists in the world.
It is well known that there has been no rain in the amounts required for this weathering since about 12 000 to 16 000 years ago.
Who do you believe? the soft science archaeologists who have a National ax to grind, or the hard science geologists who don't? your call.
If you want more, PM me this post is being hi-jacked from poor Irkhala and it's unfair on him.
