NNT stupid funny

doobs · Post by **doobs** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:25 am

stupid funny!

NNT

opmtrader · Post by **opmtrader** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:30 pm

I posted this link in another NNT thread. It is worthy of its own thread here though. It is one of the strangest things I've seen. Check out this guy's website.

http://www.channer.tv/

His list of quotes are actually interesting, but his fascination with "sythesis" is hard to wrap your head around.

doobs · Post by **doobs** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 6:20 pm

Applause Talk about extreme events!

LongTheta · Post by **LongTheta** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 4:21 am

I watched the first 15 mins then had to stop as I found it unwatchable. I wish the interviewer could have stopped interrupting Taleb every 5 seconds with his "huhmm"'s or downright unnecessary comments. How can an experienced interviewer do that?

On the other hand, in the part that I watched, I thought Taleb represented himself very well under the circumstances, and clearly brought his basic message across: Pay me to explain probability theory to you, and thereby you and I make a living.

Path Integral · Post by **Path Integral** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:29 am

"I consider myself a practitioner of uncertainty" Applause

"It all started when I was a Wharton student. I was quite young to be a Wharton student. And suddenly I discovered that I could make a living out of people's misunderstanding of randomness and overstatement of order." Applause Applause

It cracked me up. I stopped after that b/c it is utterly unwatchable. Talk about narcisistic intellectual masturbation session. What a cunt

LongTheta · Post by **LongTheta** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:32 pm

What do you expect? He's a salesman, though I must admit he's salesmanship is not very subtle.

polysena · Post by **polysena** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:42 pm

I really do have a problem with this NT. I heard him first at a HF "event" for practitionners, he was obviously capturing the audience with some "gory/sexy" stuff that left me totally cold and bored: he was on scene sitting with a brochette of celeb's (Scholes and others) and got Scholes so sick that the guy got up and left.. then there is the interview collections on youtube that usually fail to impress me.. I formed a clearly "prejudiced" jugement of him based on that and decided he was a non-event. On the other hand I know quite a few people with a totally sound quantitative background, who find him deep and reckon his "knowledge" of quantitative finance is outstanding...so am I failing to see in what he is so special or what?

Path Integral · Post by **Path Integral** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:48 pm

Polysena,

Ask them to explain what they find so deep and insightful about NT's opinions and views. I bet ya that they don't get further than "well, you know people can't really get their head around randomness and this guy does."

IMO NT is the archetype of the wonkish, slightly autistic mathematician that believes that thinking long enough about a problem he'll be able to understand it, control it, to model it, and forever more be pedantic about it to anyone who doesn't immediately after him explaining it. I don't imply he understands a flying shit about what he talks about. Sometimes you have to admit that although you can describe something mathematically, you don't really understand why the axioms lead to a beautiful theory.

Coming from a QM background I think I have a fair grasp of the subject. But when someone like Richard Feynman says that anyone who says he/she understands QM and its strange nature, actually doesn't. IMO the same applies to randomness, and chance. So NT saying that he has to me says he hasn't.

What is the most disturbng to me is that he's being councelled as an expert on the news networks. He's getting a stage where he's preaching to the unaware, deaf, dumb and blind. I hope no regulator ever takes him seriously, but then again they belong to the aforementioned group.

I have 2 books of his books and already thinking for a while to light my bbq with them. If you haven't read his books, try it, and see the ramblings a dillusional fool.

chiral3 · Post by **chiral3** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:48 pm

I think the thing to remember with Nassim is that precisely what makes him a joke to us is exactly what gets him airtime with the uninitiated. Getting frustrated by him is natural, but also about as sensible as getting angry at a crying baby or by a retarded person who walks in front of a train. Nassim sells pieces because he comes out and calls people idiots and has a small following. Never mind that he doesn't publish, that he is wrong 95% of the time, that his annualized fund returns over time are probably less than SPX and that he never actually ever quantifies or substantiates is assertions. But, you know what? He knows this, and he is probably laughing to himself because what he really wants is attention, and he has little discretion about who gives it to him.

chiral3 · Post by **chiral3** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:49 pm

BTW - I thought DH was brilliant, albeit in need of editing. But he jumped the shark around then too.