[skybrian]

Yeah, it's badly written in a way to provoke controversy, but fundamentally, I'm not sure there's any real disagreement here?

In simple terms, he's just saying that it needs to be safe to take chances in order for it to be worthwhile to take chances. As you say, science is an example of a system where it's often safe to take chances, because you don't risk losing any knowledge from a failed experiment. (But that doesn't mean there are no costs! You can lose time and money. And I'll also point out that some experiments can be dangerous.)

In any search, whether you can find something interesting is going to depend at least partly on the landscape, so understanding the landscape better will improve the search process, along with your estimates of whether it's worth doing at all. Calling this property of a desirable landscape "convexity" doesn't, in itself, help you understand the landscape, but it doesn't seem wrong?

[DougBTX]

> Yeah, it's badly written in a way to provoke controversy

I’m not sure it is worth my time to read something that is badly written to provoke controversy, even if it does make good clickbait.

[milesvp]

Yeah, I used to go out of my way to follow links to Taleb’s writing, but then I kept running into pieces like this one, where it wasn’t clear if he knew he was fundamentally (if not subtly) wrong. He seems to welcome controversy, and his recent childish attack on guy from 538 means I won’t give him more than a paragragh to convince me the rest of the piece is worth my time.

[solveit]

I hate it when smart, competent people become famous, and a few years later they become total loons. Happens way too often.

[coldtea]

>* but then I kept running into pieces like this one, where it wasn’t clear if he knew he was fundamentally (if not subtly) wrong*

He is not "fundamentally" wrong here though. The parent comment misread what TFA says (as I replied above).

[coldtea]

It is worth the time for those that can read beyond the title or opening paragraphs.

There's nothing against a work with a clickbait title or opening being the most important thing one would read all year.

Like whether an author is a "bad man" in their personal life tells us nothing about the worth of their work, the ways an author/editor tries to attract viewers do not mean that the actual content is also of bad quality.