I have read a small bit of Talebs work. He seems focused on haplogroups and genetics, which I find to be a Pandora's box. His book Black Swan I found very good, though I disliked his tone. I think everyone should read it because it discusses two kinds of knowledge, Techne versus Epistme. Techne is how to do a thing. Epistme is future prediction or past prediction. He claims man has a horrible track record at predicting and that due to the nature of the backwards process is likely just as bad at looking backwards. So in short It's odd to me Taleb is trying to look backwards.
How this relates to Hacker news? I believe it should be Techne focused and not Epistme focused.
> "How this relates to Hacker news? I believe it should be Techne focused and not Epistme focused."
The HN guidelines are pretty clear on what is considered on-topic:
> "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
> "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
> "If you think a submission or comment is inappropriate for HN, you can flag or downvote."
How this relates to Hacker news? I believe it should be Techne focused and not Epistme focused.