Justin Tapp's Reviews > Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

Having worked through the rest of Talebs' books, and following him on Twitter for years, I guess everything has become pretty repetitive. In Fooled by Randomness, he notes Karl Popper and other philosophers who were personally inconsistent with what they preached. Taleb is similar, blocking people on Twitter and getting into notorious fits whenever people criticize him or his work. Meanwhile, he discourages groupthink and encourages criticism of the intellectual inteligentsia -- which Taleb thinks he is not. This book contains his customary rant against Stephen Pinker, psychologists, and economists. He also claims in the book that cursing on Twitter is a signal of competence... Anyway, here are the main points I gleaned from Skin in the Game:

Taleb believes that ethics, morals, and skill cannot be separated. Skin in the game is essentially "put your money where your mouth is," which is an age-old idea. Taleb writes that "skin in the game keeps human hubris in check." He hates academics and policymakers who are unaffected by the advice they give and laws they write, as well as bailouts that create moral hazard. "Thou shalt not become antifragile at the expense of others." He repeats some ideas from antifragile. Fragility is sensitivity to disorder. The only effective judge of things is time, and time operates through skin in the game. He holds up the so-called Lindy Effect--that which is Lindy is what ages in reverse-- life expectancy increases over time as a person lives longer.

He compares skin in the game to the concept of "soul in the game," where people have a vested interest in advancing their career and their ego. If they're proven wrong, then their ego and career will suffer, so they have incentive to be correct. But this is a step short of his vaunted "skin in the game," where people (literally) fall on their swords when they're wrong.

Taleb prefers the American federalist system to others and holds that good fences make good neighbors. He wants to punish family members of suicide bombers to create skin in the game for the would-be bombers. He has some logical thoughts on contractors versus employees which is applicable in many settings-- employees may be relatively "lazy" but they are loyal because they risk being fired-- they have skin in the game, whereas a contractor has no loyalty. Taleb would rather go to a surgeon who looks like a butcher than one who looks made-for-television and graduated from the best schools. Here he has a decent point-- people who "don't look the part" may have survived by skin in the game-- they have overcome some handicap, graduated from the "wrong" schools, etc. and likely did so by their skills.

He cautions against virtue-signalling as well as religious rigidity. His biggest enemy is Arabism, as anyone who follows him on Twitter knows. In short, the reader can get good nuggets in the book while also getting Taleb's classic rants against well-worn foes. 2.5 stars out of 5.