Olivia
Online
Alexander
@liminaqua
Don't try to catch a falling knife
Israel š®š±
Joined April 2026
856 Following
54 Followers
185 Posts
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@realAtlasPress https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@Dipper_pol https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@BookNoteApp https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@ns123abc https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@poorbjorn https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@jjihec https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
@bryan_johnson https://t.co/BmTOstgoDU
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
Today is a small celebration. Turns out I was blocked on Twitter by #NassimTaleb himself, some time ago, lord of black swans and fragility. Only noticed it today, by accident. Making this manās blacklist isnāt exactly hard, but itās flattering all the same.
Why he blocked me is fairly clear. I wrote a polite post saying his position on Israel since October 7th has been disappointing. Nothing offensive, ordinary criticism. But apparently, for a man who spent his whole career lecturing the world on intellectual courage, hearing disagreement from an ordinary reader was unbearable.
Amusingly, this is a systemic trait, not a one off. Discover Magazine asked back in 2014 whether someone should run a background check on Talebās fragile ego to figure out what makes him so averse to criticism. The same piece quotes his own admission that he blocks science journalists quickly, supposedly because they donāt understand the gap between small and extreme differences. In other words, a man openly stating his principle, block anyone who might turn out to be right.
The Spectator, a piece generally sympathetic to Taleb, unintentionally paints the portrait of a classic fragile genius. Friends describe him as kind in person, but admitthereās a paradox here, a courtly conversationalist in private and an aggressive brawler on Twitter. Funny how the courage only shows up where thereās no risk of a real time response.
Thereās also a telling episode involving GMOs, unrelated to Israel, but a perfect illustration of the method. In 2014 he publicly calledAnne Glover, then the EUās chief scientific advisor and one of the most respected scientists in the world, a ādangerous imbecileā Genetic literacy project for disagreeing with him on genetic engineering. Not an argument, not data, just a label.
A philosopher who runs the site Curiosity described a similar episode, pointing out a factual error in one of Talebās articles. The response was predictable, Taleb admitted the correction was right, then simply told him to get lost. A man who built a career exposing other peopleās errors struggles to admit his own, and struggles even harder to forgive the person who caught it.
On Israel, itās the same pattern, just higher stakes and higher volume. This isnāt a couple of bad tweets. The Times of Israel documented in detailhow Taleb denies the validity of racial and genetic arguments in words, then turns around and uses them against Jews and Israel himself. And he does it remarkably consistently, anti-Israel posts have long been a noticeable, if not dominant, share of his feed.
Hereās whatās genuinely curious. Taleb, for all his self-regard, pours an enormous amount of resource into this subject, time, reputation, intellectual capital, year after year. Ordinarily, self-loving people treat every minute of attention as too precious to give away for free. It raises a fair question, what drives a man to invest this consistently in the same propaganda line without any apparent payoff. Ideological obsession on this scale is rare enough on its own, but it would be naive to rule out more prosaic explanations too, grants, sponsors, the political interests of certain circles. It would be naive to assume this is pure altruism.
A man who built his brand on the idea of antifragility turns out to be remarkably fragile the moment criticism lands on him personally, and remarkably generous when it comes to attacking Israel. Maybe thatās his own black swan, the inability to predict that one day, it wouldnāt be him doing the blocking, it would be reality.
I recently finished Countdown to Zero Day.
Itās often described as a book about #Stuxnet, but thatās only part of the story. Much of the book explores the broader history of cyber operations, malware, industrial control systems, and the events that made Stuxnet possible. At times, those detours feel dry and pull the reader away from the main narrative. At other times, they provide valuable context.
What I appreciated most was the authorsā epistemology. They resist the temptation to turn speculation into fact. When the evidence ends, they simply say, āWe donāt know.ā The book acknowledges these as open questions rather than filling the gaps with convenient stories.
I enjoyed it, but I wouldnāt recommend it broadly. Itās a book for readers who already have a solid technical background and are genuinely interested in the history of cyber operations.
https://t.co/lmYWRRSbLf
#TIL : the Latin word āsinisterā simply meant āleft.ā But the origin of its bad reputation isnāt obvious. The Roman augurs themselves, facing south, considered the left side favorable. It was the Greeks, facing north, who saw the left side, that is the west, as the direction of sunset and bad omens. It was this Greek interpretation that eventually won out and attached itself to the Latin word.
Its counterpart, ādexter,ā right, gave us the English ādexterous,ā skillful. A physical orientation of the body slowly turned into a moral metaphor.
āDexterā and āsinisterā are also the sides of a heraldic shield, defined not from the viewerās perspective but from that of the person holding the shield. So the āsinister,ā ominous side of the shield is actually on our right.
All in all, left was never much of a good thing, except for the Romans themselves.
@bryan_johnson Stay healthy, Bryan š¤
@nexta_tv https://t.co/hNmxPuAjJf
Today, for some reason, I found myself thinking about what the signs of a real change of power in #Russia would look like. I donāt know what all of them would be. But for me there are two necessary conditions.
First, Lenin will finally be buried. Second, the murder of Vlad Listyev will be fully solved, with the people who ordered it and carried it out named.
This doesnāt guarantee change. But without it, any change remains decorative.
@DefenceU https://t.co/hNmxPuAjJf
Today, for some reason, I found myself thinking about what the signs of a real change of power in #Russia would look like. I donāt know what all of them would be. But for me there are two necessary conditions.
First, Lenin will finally be buried. Second, the murder of Vlad Listyev will be fully solved, with the people who ordered it and carried it out named.
This doesnāt guarantee change. But without it, any change remains decorative.
Last Seen Users on Sotwe
ŲØŲ±ŁŁŁ
ę©åayš„
Seen from United States
My Cruising Blog
Seen from Germany
Loįŗ”n luĆ¢n mįŗ¹ con
Seen from Vietnam
ąøąøąøąø«ąø”ąøąø¢
Seen from Thailand
SpicySpankCN
Seen from Korea
ą¹ąø”ąøµąø¢ąø”ąøµąøąø¹ą¹
Seen from Thailand
ThĆØm BĆŗ Lį»n Anh ThĘ°
Seen from Vietnam
Gundal Bali
Seen from Indonesia
KhmerMan24h
Trends for you
Most Popular Users
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
240.7M followers
Barack Obama
@barackobama
119.2M followers
Donald J. Trump
@realdonaldtrump
111.7M followers
Cristiano Ronaldo
@cristiano
110.8M followers
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
107M followers
Rihanna
@rihanna
97.7M followers
NASA
@nasa
92.2M followers
Justin Bieber
@justinbieber
90.9M followers
KATY PERRY
@katyperry
87.8M followers
Taylor Swift
@taylorswift13
81.6M followers
Lady Gaga
@ladygaga
73.2M followers
Virat Kohli
@imvkohli
70.1M followers
Kim Kardashian
@kimkardashian
69.8M followers
YouTube
@youtube
68.7M followers
Bill Gates
@billgates
64M followers
Neymar Jr
@neymarjr
62.9M followers
The Ellen Show
@theellenshow
62.4M followers
CNN
@cnn
61.9M followers
Selena Gomez
@selenagomez
60.9M followers
X
@x
60.8M followers