Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi scheme
Nassim Taleb Blog
“Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and quant investing pioneer Cliff Asness have engaged in a vitriolic Twitter dispute over the esoteric world of tail-risk hedging that descended into personal insults. The spat began when Taleb sent a pair of tweets accusing the $143 billion AQR Capital Management LLC of issuing flawed reports that. 2 days ago Nassim Taleb doubled down on his view that bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme and a failed currency. The cryptocurrency has been viewed as a potential hedge against inflation by some analysts.
Lebanese-American financial markets guru Nassim Taleb returned to attack Bitcoin on Twitter on late Wednesday (14) by writing the following: “Bitcoin has failed to be a currency,open-Ponzi speculative game.”
Nassim Taleb: Bitcoin failed as a currency and became a speculative ponzi (Image: Atlas Geographica)
WHAT WE WANT CRYPTO & CURRENCY FOR:
1) Currency w/o a government
2) Stable/reliable for contracts
3) Inflation indexed store of value — basket of items representative for me.
4) Rapid transactions
Can we do it?
#BTC failed to be currency, open-Ponzi speculative game.
1/n
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 14, 2021
The tweet follows his February speech this year, when he also used the social network to claim that Bitcoin failed as a store of value. The publication generated revolt in an ‘old friend’ who countered him, the author of the book ‘The Bitcoin Standard’, Saifedean Ammous.
In yesterday’s publication, Taleb starts with the premise “WHAT WE WANT CRYPTO & CURRENCY FOR”, describing what would be ideal for him:
“1) Currency w/o a government
2) Stable/reliable for contracts
3) Inflation indexed store of value — basket of items representative for me.
4) Rapid transactions”. He concluded with the question, “Can we do this?”
Questioned by the user ‘Ultra_Mega_BTC’, who said that “the market is saying the opposite”, Nassim Taleb called him an “imbecile”.
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Uh oh, it looks like Tooleb is having another fit on Twitter about those ‘race Nazis’ again:
Is @clairlemon still denying that her Quillete project is into a neo-Nazi 'scientific' racism ('race realism') agenda?
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 29, 2019
In the Twitter comments, the overwhelming majority disagree with Taleb and his libeling of Quillette magazine editor and founder Claire Lehman. I guess while there is not much hope for Taleb and his now rapidly eroding reputation and credibility, I think this give me hope for Twitter.
Regarding race and IQ, certain groups performing worse on certain metrics of educational and socioeconomic achievement is just a positive fact, and corroborated by IQ tests. There is no need to presuppose a racial motive when the actual socioeconomic data confirms it. If Blacks performed as well as Whites socioeconomically and in terns of educational attainment in spite of scoring lower on IQ tests, then that would call into doubt the validity of such tests, but that is not the case.
Like most twitter spats in which the aggressor has an over-inflated ego, the exchange is long and convoluted, but Tooleb writes:
Also impossible to teach charlatans that 'handwaving' means exactly what THEY do for a living.@clairlemon should stop Quillette, and take a study sabbatical (5-10 years) to do some elementary statistics, data science, etc., before uttering such verbiage.https://t.co/ZjZZUU04fb
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 27, 2019
But I thought Tooleb’s shtick is that intuition and heuristics matter more than precise statistical and analytical models? Taleb offers no refutation to Claire’s actual argument.
To continue the thread. Lehman is a fraud, & not smart enough to be caught.https://t.co/FXEvHcevrw
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 28, 2019
In Taleb parlance, ‘fraud’ is something or someone with whom he disagrees with, and or a mathematical model or theory that does not meet Taleb’s arbitrarily high burden of proof. That is the great thing about being Taleb is you get to decide which ideas or people are fraudulent or not, just by declaring it so. And then Tooleb posts his fancy math PDFs rendered with Mathematica to show how smart he is to his followers even though clearly IQ does not matter to him.
From one of my favorite posts Sam Harris’ takedown of Nassim Taleb:
Taleb has a history of bullying people who are smarter than him, such as Steven Pinker and Sam Harris. Like the postmodernists described by Jordan Peterson, Taleb does not engage in productive debate. When challenged on Twitter, Taleb does one of two things: berate the person publicly (if the person is a public figure) or block (everyone else). Although nowadays being attacked by Taleb is considered a badge of honor–it means you’re doing something right, such as defending HBD research or setting fire to one of Taleb’s numerous strawmen, inconsistencies, and misconstructions.
At the request on Quillette followers I took an IQ test. Guess my score:
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 30, 2019
I think Tooleb is alluding to studies that purport Lebanon’s mean IQ of being 80. But I think you need an IQ of at least 95 to be as proficient at making PDFs as Tooleb is, though. So he has that going for him.
BTّW for those who want to see my thingy with IQ, here is the paper, heading towards the half a million readers.https://t.co/sR5GJEHz60
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 27, 2019
If half a million people have read it, then it must be true. The ol’ argumentum ad populum. I thought Tooleb is supposed to be be smarter than that.
My speculation that there will be a growing closet Trump support in the far left is getting more and more confirmation. https://t.co/heQOEEhorq
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 27, 2019
Deezer lg tv. Yeah cuz we all know antifa loves Trump.
Nationalists, falsely accused of racism, hold 'all children are equal but each under obligation to give preference to their own'@Quilette's full neo-Nazi approach: 'these people are genetically inferior; let us find the science ( and fake defense of free speech) to back it up'
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 28, 2019
Tooleb has gone full-SJW. The only thing he is missing is a man bun. Of course, no criticism of any specific article or argument in mind. It’s just name calling, as SJWs tend to do. He could have written a rebuttal to a specific Quillette article(s) he had in mind backed by contravening studies, but it is easier to just play the Nazi card.
This is the kind of crap I've been getting nonstop from Quilette followers. pic.twitter.com/5js8w1xroo
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 28, 2019
Taleb Twitter Bitcoin
It’s not crap. It’s called data, which is used to make an augment, which something Tooleb is incapable of doing. Such data is corroborated by studies as far back as 100 years. To equate disagreement and objective data with assault and victimization is what SJWs do.
The problem with Taleb isnt that he's an asshole. He is an asshole. The problem with Taleb is that he's an asshole and he's right.
— TryingReadOnly (@ReadTrying) July 28, 2019
Well, shit, I’m convinced now.
I have Quillette's Lehmann @clairlemon on mute.
She made/will make a publicized statement denying she has 'a neo-nazi racial agenda'.
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 28, 2019
Oh snap, he has her on mute. That will show her. What better way to engage with disagreement than to mute it? Claire built a thriving magazine that is read by some of the most important leading intellectual and political figures, and has helped provide a counterbalance to the prevailing left-wing narrative in academia. What has Tooleb done? Write some books that recycle old ideas, and now he goes out on twitter and acts like he knows more than everyone else just because he has some money and fame? Academic books are intended to summarize existing knowledge (original stuff is sent to journals). But but the difference is, most public intellectuals at least have enough situational awareness to know which battles are worth fighting or not, yet Tooleb has entered into a battle of wits unarmed given that he has yet to supply an actual argument refuting anything published on Quillette and that his knowledge of IQ and the literature is demonstrably very lacking.
When all else fails, resort to name-calling:
I find your bad language and insults directed at your opponent interesting. You have clearly lost the debate on its merits and have been reduced to rather silly and irrelevant comments. Sad really I thought the debate was worth having
— Epicurus (@epicurus_atar) July 31, 2019
We cannot even say Taleb lost the debate, because that would imply that Taleb made some effort at formulating a coherent argument, when all he did was throw a tantrum and libel Claire.
Tooleb continues:
Security software for mac free download. One lesson to everyone about #Antifragile and not just to “racemonger Claire” @clairlemon:
Never claim to be antifragile and play victim. Never.
Gabish? https://t.co/meRZ16v14y
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 31, 2019
If anyone is playing the victim here, it’s Taleb, who is easily triggered by IQ.
I think Taleb’s antipathy to academia and IQ is because he never made it as an academic researcher. He wrote a single somewhat influential book in finance, and then his much more popular Incerto series, and made some money trading options (assuming this is true), but success at academia–as in producing original and widely-cited content–is a much more exclusive circle than merely having a lot of money or selling a lot of books. The people who follow Tooleb are not that bright, and Tooleb knows this. A small high-IQ following is more rewarding on a personal and professional level than a large average-IQ one. He wants to advance to the next level, but cannot.
The above tweets prove what I said months ago, which is that Tooleb is a closet SJW or at the very least is very much sympathetic to their views such as on race and IQ, but also in how he even attacks moderates such as Claire Lehman and Jordan Peterson and uses the same rhetorical techniques as the left, of ascribing racist motives to views he [Taleb] disagrees with. Playing the racism card is the oldest SJW tactic in the book, and Taleb has done it repeatedly over the years. SJWs really hate Jordan Peterson, but are indifferent to Taleb, because they know that Taleb is on their side. It’s also why Twitter will never suspend Tooleb’s account for insulting other users, which is against the TOS, yet conservatives have gotten banned for merely misgendering someone.