A review by khorrocks
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
1.0
I think this was my first one star review!
Ugh. I'm so glad to be done with this book. I'm trying to give books a chance, and read to the last page, but if I actually read this book (as opposed to listening to the audiobook) I would have dropped it after the second page. That said, I grew so annoyed with the author that I often tuned him out. The most annoying thing about the book was the author's flippant and mocking tone about things that he despises. He used made-up words like fragilistas and antifragility schmantifragility that grated on my nerves. (The book's title Antifragile, wasn't much better). He also took very strong stances against very vague and broad subjects, like modernity, evidence, and nerds, while applauding things like ancients, and a strange man called Fat Tony. I think my biggest frustration is that he had some interesting points, and I was previously very optimistic about the premise, but his negative tone, lack of research, and overall use of derisive terminology was too much. Also, I feel like he was throwing around jargon (real and invented) to make his claims sound intelligent, but it came across as high-minded and repetitive: heuristic, Procrustean, bifurcating, autodidacts, hormetic, iatrogenics, touristification, doxastic, via negativa, Thalesian, Aristotelian, neomania, mediocristan, convexity...
Here's a few quotes:
"Wimp."
"Sissy."
"The author doesn't care about the haters."
"The knowledge-based economy is typically ignorant."
It must be nice to be a comfortable author, who can only gain publicity from negative responses, meanwhile he insults those who spend their careers serving others or trying to make the world a better place, like doctors, scientists, and architects. I may have took offense at that last one. I'm not sure why so many people have a positive review of his writing.
Ugh. I'm so glad to be done with this book. I'm trying to give books a chance, and read to the last page, but if I actually read this book (as opposed to listening to the audiobook) I would have dropped it after the second page. That said, I grew so annoyed with the author that I often tuned him out. The most annoying thing about the book was the author's flippant and mocking tone about things that he despises. He used made-up words like fragilistas and antifragility schmantifragility that grated on my nerves. (The book's title Antifragile, wasn't much better). He also took very strong stances against very vague and broad subjects, like modernity, evidence, and nerds, while applauding things like ancients, and a strange man called Fat Tony. I think my biggest frustration is that he had some interesting points, and I was previously very optimistic about the premise, but his negative tone, lack of research, and overall use of derisive terminology was too much. Also, I feel like he was throwing around jargon (real and invented) to make his claims sound intelligent, but it came across as high-minded and repetitive: heuristic, Procrustean, bifurcating, autodidacts, hormetic, iatrogenics, touristification, doxastic, via negativa, Thalesian, Aristotelian, neomania, mediocristan, convexity...
Here's a few quotes:
"Wimp."
"Sissy."
"The author doesn't care about the haters."
"The knowledge-based economy is typically ignorant."
It must be nice to be a comfortable author, who can only gain publicity from negative responses, meanwhile he insults those who spend their careers serving others or trying to make the world a better place, like doctors, scientists, and architects. I may have took offense at that last one. I'm not sure why so many people have a positive review of his writing.