Taleb overstates his case, committing errors he attributes to others. His overconfidence, ironically, makes his arguments more fragile to refutation than they needed to be. This is a shame, because his book is full of important warnings and insights.
ReadIf we find it hard to believe that winning millions might not be so lucky after all, we just don’t have a good enough imagination. If I fantasise about winning the lottery, it doesn’t take long before all sorts of worrisome potential consequences occur to me. I think about how I might spread the love, and worry that it would take away the incentive for someone to work at what might really give them satisfaction; or that they might spend the cash on things like cosmetic surgery or drugs that are no good for them in the long run. Meanwhile, of course, I trust myself to spend wisely, unaware of all the ways in which I too might screw up my life by making bad choices.
ReadMany of the personal struggles we face are not “psychological problems” of a more or less medical kind, but part and parcel of the confusing and often difficult search for meaning, value and purpose. Gardens, kitchens, literature, philosophy and art can all help in this quest. However, what is of value in them threatens to be lost or perverted if we turn all that is therapeutic into forms of therapy.
ReadIf someone has a terminal condition and the doctor knows how long she has left to live, does the patient have the right to be told? Virtually everyone thinks she does. So why should it be different if that terminal condition is life itself?
ReadIt is the policy-maker’s job to work out solutions to problems. The writer’s role is to direct the reader to the most important problems and make them worry about them. So it does not matter that some of Sven Lindqvist’s past pessimism, about third-world debt and ozone depletion for instance, have not been borne out. “I am not a fortune teller,” he said, and nor should any artist pretend to be.
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