So by now, Trump’s spectacular debacle of a press conference is the oldest of old news.
But that doesn’t make it any less funny.
There are those who have defended the 75 minute-long, rambling clusterf*ck, claiming – as one very prominent “intellectual” did – that the President “played the press like a violin.”
Because it’s Saturday and I imagine a non-negligible percentage of the Heisenberg readership is probably not in the mood for deep finance, I wanted to present a hilarious juxtaposition in the interest of providing some (much needed) comic relief.
First we have black swan godfather, brilliant statistician, and fake philosopher Nassim Taleb essentially plugging and defending the Steve Bannon bible “Antifragile” by explaining to all of us dimwits that no matter what we think we saw, Trump’s first solo presser was actually a clinic in Presidential brilliance:
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/832581734369730564
[Note: in English the analogy is “like a fiddle,” but I suppose fiddles are beneath someone of Taleb’s intellect, so he needed to substitute an instrument more befitting of a genius into his metaphor.]
So compare Taleb’s assessment of Trump’s performance with the following (slightly slowed down to maximize the hilarity) clip and ask yourself who’s really “low-IQ”, HuffPo or the President…
And if you’re that guy/gal who wants to say “oh that’s not fair, it’s slowed down to exaggerate how ignorant he is,” well then 1) God bless you, because you have no sense of humor, and 2) ask yourself what it says about a President when you have to say things like “it’s slowed down to exaggerate how ignorant he is.”
***
Finally, on a more personal note, I’m continually disheartened by Taleb – and not just because his work is being used to promote populism. But rather, I find it exceedingly unfortunate that someone can be so brilliant (far smarter than I will ever be) and yet simultaneously so overtly and cruelly pretentious. I myself am guilty of intellectual pretentiousness, but sh*t like this is really inexcusable from someone who has done so well and who a lot of people look up to…
Fuck off. Is this impolite enough for you?
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) February 20, 2017
There is an intellectual universal response given with right timber to be snobbish. It is pretty obvious the next statement about Mr. Taleb is, what a DICK!