Nassim Nicholas Taleb: evaluation

Transcript context

…We’re very honored today to have with us the great Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I’m reminded of the words of the Hall of Famer Ernie Banks from Chicago, who used to always say, “Let’s play two,” when there was the possibility of a doubleheader. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has been gracious enough to agree to this dual event. First, he and I will converse, and then he will talk with Bryan Caplan. Just to be clear, as always, this is the conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb I want to have, not the one that you want to have. [laughter] Historically, a very basic question: on page 7 of The Black Swan, you mention the 1975 Lebanese Civil War as having been a black swan of sorts. If we think back to the earlier history of the region — the growing role of the PLO in the country; the end of the Eisenhower Doctrine, which meant maybe the US would not intervene; the prior conflict in 1958; ongoing differences in birth rates with more Muslims being born — wasn’t it, in a sense, actually fairly predictable and not a black swan? How do you see the history of your own country in this way? No, it’s going to surprise everybody. It might have been predictable, but not on that scale for several reasons. The first one is that nobody understood the effect of modern weapons because previous conflicts were more local, and more confined. You didn’t have artillery, and then things died down quickly. Then, you have another thing — that these idiots brought in the PLO. After 1973, as a way that Lebanon wanted to stay neutral with Israel — not neutral, but engaged, to say, “OK, you guys can fight from here, but we’re not going to fight Israel.” Then, they didn’t realize that these guys were going to is try to take over the place. So the imbalance came not from within. It came from a huge number of armed Palestinians in Lebanon that disrupted the balance and caused immediately, as a reaction, the Christians to go and get gone. What’s the role of the Phoenicians in your thought?…

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