[dondawest]

He reminds me of Ayn Rand hating on government handouts while taking them. He promotes stoicism while practicing the opposite.

You can say he’s promoting “logical stoicism” just like Ayn Rand fans can say that “it’s okay to be ideologically against handouts while taking them,” but we both know deep down that these people aren’t practicing what they preach.

I like Taleb a lot but it took me a little while to understand that he was writing an idealized version of himself and his philosophy that is frankly fictional but still has great value.

[yhavr]

He promotes stoic-ish things, not stoicism.

> "but we both know deep down that these people aren’t practicing what they preach"

Actually, it's one of core tenets of his philosophy. "don't tell what to do, show me what you did in the same situation".