I started reading that book and I thought he was a genius, but then, right abut the point where he starts bagging on the Uncertainty Principle, I realized that he's actually kind of an idiot.
Maybe I'm the idiot, but I found the book's point to be pretty trivial. "Sometimes unexpected things happen, and people are bad at expecting the unexpected" seems pretty damn trivial to me.
Maybe it's because I think like a programmer rather than a finance guy, but a large portion of what I do on a daily basis is about mitigating risk from the unknown. A programmer who only guards against known risks is going to get his ass handed to him sooner rather than later (these are the sorts of people who use blacklists and regexes to sanitize SQL). A finance guy who only guards against known risks is just playing the averages. My experience with traders is that they tend to be pretty abstracted from reality and like to impose rules and patterns where there are none. I can see why those sorts of people would find Taleb's work groundbreaking.
Taleb's undoubtedly intelligent, but I feel like he woke up one day, decided that he wanted to be a philosopher who brings wisdom to the masses, and built his temple on a mind-searingly obvious principle, which he now proclaims to be his great gift to humanity, for which he should be praised, hallowed be his name. The impression I got off of him was that he considers himself a prophet, imparting a word to the masses that the rest of us are just too stupid to recognize. Gag me.
I agree with you except that you left out the only really important (in my opinion) part of his pretty trivial message: "Sometimes unexpected things happen, and people are bad at expecting the unexpected, and then they FAIL TO NOTICE that they are bad at expecting the unexpected"
It can be difficult for folks (myself included!) to separate their message from their irascible personalities.. ;-)
But if we were good at noticing that we're bad at expecting the unexpected, then we would expect the unexpected, making it no longer really all that unexpected, no? His whole argument just felt tautological to me.
If you really try, for a long time, you can be that rational. Please note, however, that 99% of people are not that rational, and if you haven't realized it, you're also not that rational. (Neither am I! But at least I realize I have a problem... b^)
If none of this makes sense, take a look at the LessWrong site.
The book does make a good point though.