Worst of all, he's endlessly digressive, and couches his digressions in the language of capricious genius rather than simple bad writing (he hits the occasional sweetnote with these tangents, but if anyone else who has read this thing cover to cover wanted to put a bullet in Yvgenia, feel free to step on up). He's got a huge chip on his shoulder towards the scientific/academic establishment (especially the Nobel committee - try taking a shot every time he makes an off-hand, tangential attack on Nobel and you've made your Friday night). He's contemptuous towards entire disciplines (economics, law, social science) without making much attempt to engage with the concepts he's critiquing beyond the broadest levels of generality.

He engages in what may be the lowest form of rhetoric by pre-emptively attacking any critics (even before they've had the chance to come forward) as too stupid or blinkered to follow his argument. He's dismissive, chronically insecure, unstructured and hostile towards his detractors.

This is a book that raises a number of very important questions, but chief among them is definitely the question of how the interplay between a good idea and an insufferable author combine to effect the reading experience? Taleb believes that prizes, honorary degrees, awards, and ceremonialism debase knowledge by turning it into a spectator sport. His current focus is on the properties of systems that can handle disorder ('antifragile'). Taleb is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering (only a quarter time position). In addition to his trader life, Taleb has also written, as a backup of the Incerto, more than 50 scholarly papers in statistical physics, statistics, philosophy, ethics, economics, international affairs, and quantitative finance, all around the notion of risk and probability. Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision making when we don’t understand the world, expressed in the form of a personal essay with autobiographical sections, stories, parables, and philosophical, historical, and scientic discussions in nonover lapping volumes that can be accessed in any order.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 21 years as a risk taker (quantitative trader) before becoming a flaneur and researcher in philosophical, mathematical and (mostly) practical problems with probability.

The black swan highly improbable