The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Overview

The author of the modern classics The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb expresses major ideas in ways you least expect in this collection of aphorisms and meditations—now expanded with fifty percent more material than the hardcover.

The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from the Greek myth of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection, either by stretching them or by cutting their limbs. It represents Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s hubristic side effects—modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery. Playful and irreverent, these aphorisms will surprise you by exposing self-delusions you have been living with but never recognized.
 
With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition with the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phonies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812982404
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Series:	Incerto Series , #4
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	364,973
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.10(d)

About the Author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to problems of uncertainty, probability, and knowledge. He spent nearly two decades as a businessman and quantitative trader before becoming a full-time philosophical essayist and academic researcher in 2006. Although he spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés, he is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute. His main subject matter is “decision making under opacity”—that is, a map and a protocol on how we should live in a world we don’t understand.
 
Taleb’s books have been published in forty-one languages.

Read an Excerpt

Counter Narratives The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said. - When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure. - It is harder to say no when you really mean it than when you don’t. Never say no twice if you mean it. - Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it. - The only objective definition of aging is when a person starts to talk about aging. - They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status—but rarely for your wisdom. - Most of what they call humility is successfully disguised arrogance.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Bed of Procrustes"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Procrusies xi

Notice xiii

Preludes 3

Counter Narratives 10

Matters Ontological 22

The Sacred and the Profane 25

Chance, Success, Happiness, and Stoicism 30

Charming and Less Charming Sucker Problems 45

Theseus, or Living the Paleo Life 51

The Republic of Letters 60

The Universal and the Particular 71

Fooled By Randomness 74

Aesthetics 80

Ethics 84

Robustness and Antifragility 98

The Ludic Fallacy and Domain Dependence 104

Epistemology and Subtractive Knowledge 108

The Scandal of Prediction 112

Being a Philosopher and Managing to Remain One 114

Economic Life and Other Very Vulgar Subjects 119

The Sage, the Weak, and the Magnificent 129

The Implicit and the Explicit 137

On the Varieties of Love and Nonlove 143

The End 148

Postface 149

Acknowledgments 157

Editorial Reviews

…happily provocative…Mr. Taleb is so calculatedly abrasive in this smart, attention-getting little book that he achieves his main objective. "A good maxim," he writes, "allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation."
—The New York Times

Janet Maslin

Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb
 
“The most prophetic voice of all.” —GQ
 
“The hottest thinker in the world.” —Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times (London)
 
“[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Idiosyncratically brilliant.” —Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher