The Bed of Procrustes
By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb's view of modern civilization's hubristic side effects--modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery.
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2010–2025years
30% recommend61% neutral9% critical
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- The Bed of Procrustes is great too, and easy to reread as a summary of the other books once you've already read them a few times individually.
Taleb also wrote a forward to the recent edition of Cipolla's The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, which predates Taleb's books but is "Taleb-adjacent".
- Lessons of History
Letters to a Young Poet
Letters from a Self Made Merchant to His Son
Sections of Meditations
Sections of Seneca
Bed of Procrustes
- >Taleb talked
Only because I happen to just starting reading this 4 books [0-3] motohagiography (word-depipction-of-saints?), and until 2-3 weeks ago I am ashamed to say I didn't even know who that was:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
[0-3]: Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled By Randomness, The Bed of Procrustes
- I find these to be the best "single post summaries". His books are very challenging to read, but I've always found them rewarding once I've finished/absorbed the material. No pain, no gain I suppose!
Antifragile: https://medium.com/thinking-is-hard/live-like-a-hydra-c02337...
Fooled by Randomness: https://www.fs.blog/2015/02/fooled-by-randomness/
The Bed of Procrustes: https://twitter.com/nntaleb
(I've not read Black Swan so cannot offer any recommendations)
- > At one point he was planning to publish a book of his own aphorisms, as quoted by himself, while he is still alive.
He did, it's called "The Bed of Procrustes". I quite enjoyed it, there's quite a few brilliant thoughts there, even though they're sprinkled between countless cheap shots against his enemies.
- - The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
- Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts
- The Tao Te Ching
- The Gateless Gate (Koun Yamada translation/editing)
- The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World) by Neal Stephenson
- The Invisibles by Grant Morrison
- Incerto (Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile, The Bed of Procrustes) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Iron John by Robert Bly
- Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- The Character of Physical Law by Richard P. Feynman
- Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
- 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Pharmakon by Dale Pendell
- The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss
- Greek Mythology by Edith Hamilton
- The Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual by Gary Gygax et al
- Introduction to Algorithms by Charles E. Leiserson, Clifford Stein, Ronald Rivest, and Thomas H. Cormen
