The Bed of Procrustes

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an uncompromizing no-nonsense thinker for our times. He has spent his life immersing himself in problems of luck uncertainty probability and knowledge and he has led three high-profile careers around his ideas as a man of letters as a businessman-trader and as a university professor and researcher. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University's School of Engineering. He is the author of the 4-volume INCERTO (<i>Antifragile The Black Swan Fooled by Randomness</i> and <i>The Bed of Procrustes</i>). Taleb refuses all awards and honours as they debase knowledge by turning it into competitive sports. Like Twain and Wilde before him Taleb eats paradoxes for breakfast... The aphorism is Taleb to a tee. It showcases his wit and learning and provides ways to fillet his enemies. All his usual suspects are present to be corrected: bankers fools politicians journalists... Present too are his heroes: the curious the intellectually anarchistic the idle philosopher [A] quirky entertaining collection of aphorisms covering everything from the web to the injuriousness of doing too much work... a wry often hila­rious glimpse <p><b>A condensed guide to life Nassim Nicholas Taleb's <i>The Bed of Procrustes</i> is an invaluable collection of aphorisms to help you navigate the modern world.<br></b><br>Second edition revised and expanded<br><br>Why are we so often unwilling to accept that life is unpredictable? In this brilliant book Nassim Nicholas Taleb distils his idiosyncratic wisdom to demolish our illusions contrasting the classical values of courage elegance and erudition against modern philistinism and phoniness. Only by accepting what we don't know he shows can we see the world as it really is.</p> <p><b>A condensed guide to life Nassim Nicholas Taleb's <i>The Bed of Procrustes</i> is an invaluable collection of aphorisms to help you navigate the modern world.<br></b><br>Second edition revised and expanded<br><br>Why are we so often unwilling to accept that life is unpredictable? In this brilliant book Nassim Nicholas Taleb distils his idiosyncratic wisdom to demolish our illusions contrasting the classical values of courage elegance and erudition against modern philistinism and phoniness. Only by accepting what we don't know he shows can we see the world as it really is.</p>