The Bed of Procrustes

With fifty percent more material than the hardcover, this expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes is_x000D_ a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, _x000D_ an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human _x000D_ error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The _x000D_ other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, and Antifragile.

By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect.

The Bed of Procrustes_x000D_ takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his _x000D_ visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting _x000D_ their limbs. It represents Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s _x000D_ hubristic side effects—modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming _x000D_ reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell _x000D_ drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and _x000D_ convincing people that employment is not slavery.

Playful and _x000D_ irreverent, these aphorisms will surprise you by exposing self-delusions_x000D_ you have been living with but never recognized.

With a rare _x000D_ combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human _x000D_ illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance, and _x000D_ erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and _x000D_ phoniness.

“Taleb’s crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems.”—Financial Times