Nassim Taleb is a genius.
He’s also a fucking lunatic.
As we noted earlier this week, everyone can learn a thing or two about prob and stats from Taleb. Everyone can also learn some useful things about risk management from the black swan godfather.
Unfortunately, he went full-delusions-of-grandeur-retard a couple of bestsellers ago.
Subsequently, he started giving interviews that contain gems like this one:
In Africa, Asia, and the Americas people head-load water–gyms don’t stress your bones, nature does. I lift stones.
Yes, Taleb “lifts stones.”
In fact, deadlifting is a favorite pastime for Taleb and one person who helps him with his form is this guy:
So that’s “coach Rippetoe,” and earlier this year, this is what Rippetoe told Taleb about being fat (which the coach quite clearly is):
Right. “Thin people aren’t fit.”
Well on Saturday morning, Taleb decided it was a good time to deliver a 140-character pearl of wisdom that will surely find its way into the “NNT tweet hall of fame.”
Because we wouldn’t want the “genius” of this to be lost on anyone, you’re reminded that Taleb likes to apply the word “pseudo” to everything that doesn’t emanate from either his own brain or from the manly grunts of Coach Rippetoe. For instance, economists, political scientists, etc. are all “pseudo-experts,” in Taleb’s book. So, a lot like Trump’s “so-called” judges.
What we learned on Saturday, is that when you see people like Taleb or Coach Rippetoe who, by outward appearances, seem to have beer bellies, you need to remember that they are “deadlifters” and when one is a deadlifter, one can write off one’s bulging midsection as a “pseudo-belly.” Thin waistlines, by contrast, are actually a figment of your imagination:
Guess what NNT?
That belly in the picture may indeed be accurately described as a “pseudo-belly.”
But yours is very real.
******
Ha. Rip is old school power lifter, eat 5000 calories a day guy. Visible abs are created by a calorie deficit not a machine which neither those guys are in any danger of showing.