The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (Incerto)

In 2007 Nassim Taleb depicted the then current financial situation in America as a brittle house of cards. The subsequent economic crash and burn made his reputation as a seer, though Taleb would never claim prophesy in any form. "I know nothing about the future," he told the Long Now Foundation in February, 2008. He deals not with prediction, but with the unknown, or how humans fail to deal with the unknown, throw it under the carpet and pretend it doesn't exist. "The Black Swan" has become Taleb's symbol for the world's inherent unpredictability. The runaway best seller of the same name has seemingly redefined reality itself for some. From this point on the world looks fuzzier. Taleb has since spread his Black Swan-ism everywhere, and people are listening. But how to follow up such a magnum opus? As if to prove the unpredictability of the world, Taleb releases a thin volume of... aphorisms. Could anyone have expected this? The previously verbose wizard of the unknown takes on the most laconic textual genre next to haiku. Didn't aphorisms go out with Cioran? Not to mention that the book's title sounds right out of 1890: "The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms." In recent speeches Taleb has announced that he's now a philosopher. He apparently meant it. But he's still not predicting the future.

This very tiny volume, readable in a short sitting, delineates Taleb's thought in a very different manner than his previous books. It also takes on some new subjects. A short introduction frames the aphorisms to follow. Here the charming tale of Procrustes gets juxtaposed with our modern sensibilities. But the comparison seems appropriate. Where Procrustes lopped the limbs off of his dinner guests so they fit perfectly into his bed, we moderns chop huge sections of reality away to fit our preconceived notions. In other words, we tend to ignore outliers, random events and unforeseen events with huge consequences. This expresses, though more poetically, many of the ideas included in his previous two books. Many of these ideas reappear in brief form throughout the book. For example, the section "Fooled By Randomness" (also the title of his first book), includes this passage: "The tragedy is that much of what you think is random is in your control and, what's worse, the opposite." Our Procrustean tendency to deny randomness appears throughout the book in blatant and subtle ways. But Taleb also takes on other subjects. For instance, in numerous places employment gets compared to slavery rather bluntly. Some will see the obvious parallels, others may find his examples overbearing. Taleb also talks about love, friendship, ethics, science, and other psychological and philosophical tidbits. Some are more successful than others. Some, such as "Never say no twice if you mean it" inspire nothing more than a furrowed brow and a shrug before moving on. Many are laugh out loud funny: "The opposite of success isn't failure; it is name-dropping." Still more contain real brilliance that may cause double-takes. Regardless, some lines will pass with little reaction and smack more of opinion than of insight. A few come off as bizarre. All in all, the book provides enough food for thought to justify a good solid read. Taleb does have some surprising ideas about reality and how people should spend their time. He definitely favors more free time over long hours at work. Not to mention his thoughts on academia and economics. In the end, this book defies absolute summary, like most aphoristic works. But the reading level remains simple throughout, and readers can browse without worrying too much about context (unlike Nietzsche's aphoristic works).

"The Bed of Procrustes" definitely has its charms. Not only that, aphoristic writing really seems like an appropriate style for our modern attention spans. Though wisdom often sounds quaint in a rapidly changing society. In any case don't expect this minute book to delineate Taleb's thought in full. Read "Black Swan" for that (get the recently released second edition). This one gives only a slight overview. Though fun and often intriguing, it does not delve into details. Again, those looking for depth should read "Black Swan" and those wanting more should pick up this one as an enjoyable breather. In the meantime, Taleb will likely keep ruminating. Hopefully something else akin to "Black Swan" will pop out of him. He presented one provocative thought in a recent talk that involved using nature as a model for economies. Nothing in nature is too big to fail, he claimed. One could take out nature's largest entity (say, a blue whale) and the entire system would not falter. Unlike our economy where one or two big players could level everything. Though he didn't give details, Taleb presented this as a possible economic model. He also summed up that "if economists ran nature we would all have one lung, etc." That does seem startlingly true. Perhaps emphasizing efficiency over strength weakens us in the long run. In any case, hopefully Taleb will develop such ideas in the future.

I liked Taleb's other books a lot, but this book is an unforgivable mess. It is not that it doesn't contain useful elements of wisdom. It is that those useful pieces are rare and surrounded by prejudices, attacks, snobbery and ignorance. The author has no sense of what happiness and wisdom really is, and instead attributes false motives to everyone and everything. A curmudgeon, Taleb attacks technological progress, economists, professional sportsmen, 9-to-5 employees and anything that does not meet his idea of a "magnificent great person". He frequently berates "fools" and praises the "wise", leaving no one in any doubt about who he thinks should be treated as wise. It is really sad, actually. Taleb has a lot of good ideas, but instead of spending his time explaining and educating others, he assumes a martyr personality who is apparently persecuted by the world.

What I would say to Taleb is "Grow up. Have the courage of your convictions. Stop being judgmental. Be happier." Exactly the same advice he wants to give others.

"Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing." The book is filled with repetition such as its attacks on banking and economists.

In all, this short book has some great messages, but they appear to be infrequent and hidden among frustrating repetition. By the end of the book, I felt as if little thought was put into the aphorisms and the potential for so much more was lost.

My copy arrived today, and I was anxious to read Taleb's book of aphorisms after following his progress at his website. He does not disappoint; he will make many laugh, many angry, and most think. His wit and insight spares no one; particularly academics, economists, and bankers (politicians, too).

The chapter I most anticipated was Robustness and Fragility, given Taleb's continuing dialogue at Facebook concerning anti-fragility.

This slim volume is highly recommended if you enjoyed Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan. Highest recommendation.

I did not read far into the book. Wisdom contains some quality of goodness that I find lacking here. The author probably needs some lessons in humility, and I trust life to impart them to him. It is not enough to be clever: you must be wise, and to be wise you must be good. There's an aphorism...a Platonic one.

I suppose I didn't look closely enough when I bought this but I didn't realize it was going to be entirely aphorisms (a short little phrase that embodies some general truth). At just over 100 pages this book is very short, lacks a coherent binding, and is repetitive. The book reads way too fast since each page is generally 4 or 5 aphorisms. It's worth noting before you purchase that this book is not like Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness -- except for Talib's general themes asserting that most traders are stupid, the human mind isn't engineered/adapted to adequately understand certain types of problems, everyone that works at a job is a slave, etc, etc.

Nassim says "writing is the art of repeating ones self without anyone noticing." I wouldn't say he's a bad writer, but by his definition he is.

With "The Bed of Procrustes", Taleb seems to have become even more of a bona fide philosopher than he was in his former books. The popular appeal, while still there, has been turned down slightly. Taleb has turned to the aphoristic form, and is perhaps slightly more indebted to great precursors like Nietzsche than he would like to admit. A scathing critique of modernity, as well as the usual targets: economists, forecasters, platonists. It's a very good work; the aphorisms hit me like a hammer and I will be re-reading this several times to get the full effect.

Trite. Boring. Pretentious. Essentially Worthless.

Nassim Taleb's book of aphorisms is full of distilled wisdom that will linger in your mind throughout the day, and give you a new way of looking at things that may never have occurred to you. Most are easy to comprehend on the first reading. Some of them might not make sense to you. If so, leave them be, and come back to them another time. Taleb is a contrarian thinker (and a practitioner of what he preaches), and that might unsettle some people, but his ideas ring true. Although this book is short, it is not meant to be digested in one sitting. It's best to think about what he says, and how they apply to life, society, circumstances, and what you might have taken for granted as being conventional wisdom that is flat out wrong. Given the nature of aphorisms, there is no discussion. They just "are". That by no measure doesn't mean that they can't be discussed or debated.. Discuss them with friends, family. Argue about them. Some aphorisms are meant to upset the status quo. Some may feel angered reading something that is the antithesis of their deeply held beliefs. I find its best to be honest with myself, heed the wisdom, apply it to what I know, and admit that I was mistaken to formally strongly held beliefs if it is warranted (I do this with all new information, so this applies to anything I might learn). I don't agree with everything Taleb says, but I do agree with most of it, some to more or lesser extent. (I've read all his books recently, one after the other).

To the naysayers - 1) Taleb isn't bitter towards people, he just has no patience for people he sees as fraudsters; people with no skin in the game. Academics, economists, financial gurus, journalists, politicians etc. who reverse engineer data to fit their hypothesis and then seek to tell everyone else what to do and how to think. And these people can cause immeasurable harm to the public without any corresponding harm to themselves, and often times will gain from the damage they cause. 2) Some mistake him as being pompous. He just has strong feelings towards frauds, and isn't afraid to express them. He likes people who are real, such as chatty taxi drivers who in his view may have more wisdom than career academics or those who hold them out as being super geniuses who like to dazzle with their precieved brillience.

This is somehow, both the most accessible and most difficult book in Nassim Taleb's bibliography. While, on the surface, it is funny and infuriating and entertaining, it took me several slow and careful reads, visiting his other books (especially Antifragile) to feel a true appreciation of the depth behind the (particularly, the most initially infuriating) ideas.

This is not a book best taken on with a linear, back-to-front-and-done read, to be approached like a newspaper book reviewer might do. I had it stolen on me twice.