Black Swans, Nassim Taleb and PP

[colorado4]

Having recently finished Craig and J.M.'s book, I'm convinced and have completely revamped my 401k plan to a PP through ETF funds.  I'm already sleeping much better!  There is excellent material on here and I like the outside of the box thinking. Are there any other followers of Nassim Taleb's work?  Both books "Fooled by Randomness" and "Antifragility" seem to dovetail with Harry Browne's ideology.  Essentially, he says the future is uncertain, we're not good at predicting it and we should be robust to fate.  He advocates an interesting "barbell strategy" in finance and health that makes a lot of sense to me.   

From "Antifragility":  "Provide for the worst, the best will take care of itself". 

[craigr]

I like Nassim Taleb's take on risk, even if some people get rubbed the wrong way on how he presents it. The markets (and investors) do not work on a bell curve of nice smooth standard deviations. My experience in start-ups proved that to me ages ago. It just seems obvious that the best way to deal with risk is to have flexibility for when things don't go according to plan...because they never do!

[MachineGhost]

predicting it and we should be robust to fate.  He advocates an interesting "barbell strategy" in finance and health that makes a lot of sense to me.   

Could you explain more what his strategy in health is?

[Benko]

"he suggests that it is better to do a low-effort exercise such as walking slowly most of the time, while occasionally expending extreme effort. He avers that the human body evolved to live in a random environment, with various unexpected but intense efforts and much rest"

While I have great respect for him, and he talks about what great results (forget details) he got "exercising" this way, this strikes me as silly.  And there is plenty of data andmy personal experience agrees with regularly moderate exercise (aerobic and lifting).

[colorado4]

MachineGhost,

Benko has it right.  Taleb recommends avoiding moderate exercise.  For example, he believes that sprints combined with walking is more effective than jogging. Or, do a rigorous, brief weight-lifting session (he favors the deadlift) then rest completely for several days.  Avoid the strict 30 minutes a day on the elliptical.  He also has some interesting (and slightly eccentric) health and longevity recommendations.  Off the top of my head, he recommends intermittent fasting, the avoidance of all fructose, hydrogenated oils, motorcycles and, interestingly, any drink that hasn't been around for 1000 years.  He doesn't trust modernity in many aspects.

To his credit, Taleb cites Art DeVany as being very influential.  DeVany is the one of the original "paleo" practitioners and has been called "Superman's slightly fitter grandfather" (although I sometimes wonder if DeVany might be an outlier).  I do have have a bias toward DeVany's approach.  I tried out his recommendations for 30 days several years ago and never felt better.  My Allergies cleared,  mood and sleep improved greatly and I felt stronger in my 30s than I did in my 20s.  And I noticed I could go out in the direct sunlight (for 20-30 minutes) without getting sunburn.  Something I had to watch out for in the past.  I've kept with his fitness approach but lately have added more carbs than he recommends. 

DeVany has written a compelling although slightly inflammatory article called "The top 10 reasons not to run marathons".   

MachineGhost, I read on a previous post that you follow Paul Jaminet's Perfect Health Diet.  I agree, it is an excellent book for health and longevity.

http://artdevanyonline.com/1/post/2012/ ... thons.html

[Benko]

As if one can do deadlifts only very occasionally and still maintain good form and not possibly injure yourself? (unless you've done them regularly for a long time first).

Once one gets in reasonable condition, doing intervals i.e. brief bursts of high intensity aerobic exercise, interspursed with moderate intensity exercise does make more sense then steady state cardio (as long as it works for your body), but I don't remember if that is what he was talking about.

Just because someone is an expert in one area, does not mean they know didly about other areas.

Edit: and yes, running marathons is something else again and there was some recent info about the hazards of exercising too much, not that >90% of the population has to worry about that.

[notsheigetz]

"he suggests that it is better to do a low-effort exercise such as walking slowly most of the time, while occasionally expending extreme effort. He avers that the human body evolved to live in a random environment, with various unexpected but intense efforts and much rest"

While I have great respect for him, and he talks about what great results (forget details) he got "exercising" this way, this strikes me as silly.  And there is plenty of data andmy personal experience agrees with regularly moderate exercise (aerobic and lifting).

This tends to be the way I exercise although I don't intentionally follow any specific advice on the best way to do it. It just seems to be a sort of natural rhythm that I fall into so maybe there is something to the evolutionary nature of it. I feel content being fairly lazy most of the time but occasionally I just feel the need to get my heart pounding as fast as it will go, though not for too long.

[MediumTex]

"he suggests that it is better to do a low-effort exercise such as walking slowly most of the time, while occasionally expending extreme effort. He avers that the human body evolved to live in a random environment, with various unexpected but intense efforts and much rest"

While I have great respect for him, and he talks about what great results (forget details) he got "exercising" this way, this strikes me as silly.  And there is plenty of data andmy personal experience agrees with regularly moderate exercise (aerobic and lifting).

This tends to be the way I exercise although I don't intentionally follow any specific advice on the best way to do it. It just seems to be a sort of natural rhythm that I fall into so maybe there is something to the evolutionary nature of it. I feel content being fairly lazy most of the time but occasionally I just feel the need to get my heart pounding as fast as it will go, though not for too long.

You sound like a cat.