But surely Taleb isn’t saying “no model is good enough.” He explicitly advocates greater care in model-building and greater awareness of the risks of error, not people throwing up their hands and giving up. He says at the end:
We cannot escape it unfortunately in finance, ever since we left the stone-age, our random variables
became more and more complex. We cannot escape it. We can become more robust.
But surely Taleb isn’t saying “no model is good enough.” He explicitly advocates greater care in model-building and greater awareness of the risks of error, not people throwing up their hands and giving up. He says at the end:
Actually, yes, he is. He is not terribly consistent, but when he goes into his “philosopher” mode he rants against all models.
In fact, his trademark concept of a black swan is precisely what no model can predict.