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by bko 1831 days ago
I've been following Taleb for years. I generally like abrasive style and his calling out of intellectual class. But some of his personal attacks on Bitcoin supporters is a little over the top.

From Twitter:

> [Peter McCormack] Would you discuss your findings in this paper with me. I’d like to explain to you why I think you are wrong. I believe this paper is not objective, rather written from a position of wanting to confirm your recent anti-Bitcoin position.

> [Taleb] Listen, fucking idiot. Go write your own rebuttal. The only good thing your amoeba brain is good at is in harassing mobs, intimidating innocent people who have a different opinion, pushing them to close their twitter accts. So stay quiet on my thread and keep your mouth shut.

I get that he doesn't want to engage in someone on a non-technical level or dumb down his argument, but these exchanges are off-putting. I haven't seem him express such consistent direct vitriol to others he considers fraudsters (central bankers, economists, pop-pyschology authors, journalists, etc). It's just weird that he's been going on a months long rage against people that invest their own money in something they believe in.

His paper might address this, but it seems like support for crypto to be a rather innocuous interest.

[0] https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/140673441067473715...

2 comments

Peter McCormack could start by providing evidence for why the paper was wrong, instead was trying to bait Taleb into a Twitter thread that would have done no good to anyone. Good thing for Taleb that he didn't engage.
He did engage by calling him a "fucking idiot"
It’s hard to say “shut the fuck up” and have it be effective.

I think such a statement seems to disengage and also discourage future similar potential engagements.

>>I generally like abrasive style and his calling out of intellectual class.
twitter is definitely not the right medium for discussion of an academic paper, Taleb was right in calling him a fucking idiot