>>16716864 (OP)
I don't usually disagree with what Taleb says, but the way in which he delivers his pronouncements about insufferable people makes him in fact more insufferable than them. He's a smarmy narcissist who thinks it's cute to play into how narcissistic he is. Typical of a narcissist, for him the world is divided into 2 categories that he sits above:
>People who are by objective standards better than him, either athletically, monetarily, intellectually, ethically, socially etc. He views them with sheer contempt and must find some way to rationalize how he is really superior to them because they must be intellectually or morally inferior to him in SOME way.
>People who are by objective standards worse than him: he views them paternistically and patronizingly. His ego takes comfort in the fact that they're stupider or poorer than him and he really wants them to know that they're good people and that he's an even better person for comforting them. If they make any effort to better themselves they enter the first category and he must rationalize how they are actually bad people now.
Bed of Procrustes is an amazing insight into how an intelligent pathological narcissist views the world.
