His technical papers are fun to read and based on solid mathematics. He's collecting that work into a book which is about as poorly edited as you would expect but the math is solid. There is no sense in which Taleb is as vapid as JBP.
JBP is absolutely off wrt Post-Modernism. He keeps quoting Hicks' books on Postmodernism which must be dismissed as fraud[1]. (Hicks himself presents his book on white supremacist Stefan Molyeux's podcast[2]).
my problem with JBP is that he presents his ideas as facts but they are nothing more than pseudo science and cherry picking to fit his narrative (e.g. he hasn't really understood the Jungian archetypes and keeps waffling on about it with great confidence). He seems to fit very well into Alan Sokal's definition of the "intellectual imposter". (the irony here is that Sokal himself hasn't understood postmodernism lol)
I feel like the thing about Jordan Peterson is the advice he offers seems pretty obvious if it's stuff you've been exposed to.
The thing people miss is there are a lot of people out there who haven't been exposed to such ideas.
I do think he got too big too fast and wasn't really ready to be a cultural icon like he became.
I think him and NN Taleb are on similar footing when it comes to the quality of their thought though. Both are interesting, but the well isn't very deep and you'll have to move on to something new before long.
I've read a couple, but I'm not a statistician, so I can't comment with any authority on his papers. For what it's worth, JBP has written more papers and is cited way more widely than Taleb. (But I'm not a psychologist either.)
mistermann|5 years ago
danharaj|5 years ago
DyslexicAtheist|5 years ago
my problem with JBP is that he presents his ideas as facts but they are nothing more than pseudo science and cherry picking to fit his narrative (e.g. he hasn't really understood the Jungian archetypes and keeps waffling on about it with great confidence). He seems to fit very well into Alan Sokal's definition of the "intellectual imposter". (the irony here is that Sokal himself hasn't understood postmodernism lol)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ
war1025|5 years ago
The thing people miss is there are a lot of people out there who haven't been exposed to such ideas.
I do think he got too big too fast and wasn't really ready to be a cultural icon like he became.
I think him and NN Taleb are on similar footing when it comes to the quality of their thought though. Both are interesting, but the well isn't very deep and you'll have to move on to something new before long.
dvt|5 years ago