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Taleb vs Harari, the Showdown
How the great ideas of these intellectual giants compare
Arguably two of the deepest thinkers in this century. I’ve read everything they’ve written several times and I agree with both despite the contradictions.
I would love to see a debate between them but it’s probably not going to happen. So instead I’ll have a go at comparing their ideas and see how they complement each other.
Main Ideas
Taleb
Reality is too random for us to understand. Every so often, unexpected events of vast consequences — Black Swans — happen, altering the way we see the world.
What we call truth is just a narrative fallacy — stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world.
We must be careful with these stories because they give us the wrong view of reality, a false sense of security and the illusion of knowledge.
The only way to protect ourselves is by becoming Antifragile — the ability to benefit from disorder. Since we don’t know much about reality, or what’s going to happen next, we’ll be better off by designing our lives in a way that we benefit from the upside while limiting the downside.
