Nassim Nicholas Taleb: evaluation

Transcript context

…What’s the best thing to do on an airplane? Twitter fight. [laughter] I tried, but the problem is nobody fights with me anymore. [laughter] I tried to fight with a fellow who was . . . You have the problem with the pseudo expert . . . My worst are microeconomists because you can macro-bullshit more easily than they micro-bullshit. There’s no attachment, there’s no feedback, so I tried to get into some fights with macro people. I tried to get in a fight with an Indian fellow who’s repeating that story that we’re refusing expertise at all. Remember that cartoon? They’re imitating that cartoon in The New Yorker that shows people with the sign that they don’t need the expertise of the pilot. You cannot compare a macroeconomist to a pilot. There are two classes of experts. Belly dancers are experts at belly dancing. The people who steal radios from cars are experts at stealing radios from cars. Dentists are experts at dentistry. I’m not sure macroeconomists know anything about anything. Because there’s no feedback, so we don’t know. Maybe they know. Policymakers or people in the State Department, I’m not sure they know anything because there’s no feedback. We definitely know that a carpenter is an expert at carpentry, you see? I tried to have a Twitter fight with a fellow because usually Twitter fights, number one, makes you look forward when sitting down and opening your computer. And it kills time like nothing. But no one will engage me any more. [laughter] Could we put our trust in cryptocurrencies?…

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