Ep. 131: Who won the Nassim Taleb vs. Gary North debate?

Who won the Nassim Taleb and Gary North “debate"? There was no actual debate that happened; rather, the Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses an early essay written by the legendary Mises institute speaker and author Gary North, which critiqued Nassim Taleb’s very first and arguably best book, Fooled by Randomness. In that essay North perceptively picks up that Taleb is a Hayekian by adapting the evolutionary defense of the market and for that matter society. North, a Misean and Creationist, is of course opposed to this randomized view of society which is further strengthened by the fact that a robust account of evolution isn’t exactly random either. What does Taleb get right and what does Gary North get right? Is Taleb (as well as Hayek) really an intellectual suicide bomber as North argues? North does praise Taleb at times but even that praise is somewhat backhanded. How predictable is the world and what kind of mathematical models can be used to understand social and physical reality? Does not Taleb and the Miseans, like North, agree that most mathematical models used in social sciences are quite useless, if not harmful? The only difference is that Taleb thinks his mathematical empiricism is better because it takes into account rare events and extreme risks where current models don’t. Would a Taleb informed mathematical economics (as well as social sciences) be an improved enemy for the a prior praxeological based Miseans to deal with?