1) The document describes an interaction on Facebook where the author critiques a comment by Nassim Taleb regarding the discoverers of the Mandelbrot set. 2) In response, Taleb blocks the author's comments and launches an attack against the author and the field of mathematics more broadly. 3) The author is dismayed by Taleb's disrespect towards mathematics and mathematicians, and questions whether Taleb's disrespect is indicative of a broader societal issue.

1. Meetings with
unremarkable men
Or, don’t talk to strangers on Facebook
(by Igor Rivin)

2. In the beginning
• Many years ago, a friend I respected (call him
James) recommended to me a book called “Fooled
by Randomness”, by N. N. Taleb, referring to the
author as “one of those Arabic cafe guys”.
• Since I had (and still have) a lot of respect of James,
I picked up the book, read about ten pages, and
then, much to my surprise, channeled Dorothy
Parker, who might or might not have said:

3. –Dorothy Parker (possibly apocryphal, but she SHOULD have said it)
“This is not a book to be tossed lightly, but one
to be hurled with great force”

4. Why so harsh?
• Basically, the thesis of the book is that there is a
tendency to use strategies that have high probability
of short term success, while having a negative
expectation in the long run.
• There, I have just saved you $20, and interminable
self-absorbed babble.
• It turns out that James was exactly correct (I speak
from experience of having spent more time in cafes
trying to avoid people like Taleb than I care to admit.

5. What next?
• Still, I remembered his name, and since Robert J.
Frey (a Facebook acquaintance and a respected
quant finance person) followed Taleb, and
commented on one of his posts, I saw the following:

6. Puzzling.
Since every mathematician knows that writing a book is
the path to fame (people are lazy and don’t read papers).

7. So, I made two mistakes
• The first was to point out to Taleb that he was
wrong, by showing him the following page:

8. Books do count!

9. Books do count!
• The astute reader will see that “The fractal geometry
of nature”, despite not really being a mathematics
book, has garnered 299 citations.
• Which is a lot, since the book has no theory, no
theorem, and is basically a coffee-table book, and,
granted, had a considerable influence on popular
thought because of the author’s gift for self
promotion and appropriating the work of others.

10. And now we get to my
second mistake
• I mentioned (as evidence that writing books is
actually in one’s self-interest) that if not for
Mandelbrot’s book, the Mandelbrot set would be
known as the Brooks-Matelski set, after its actual
discoverers.
• Since the genesis of the (so-called) Mandelbrot set
is well-known to many people of my acquaintance, I
was quite unprepared for the response.

12. Briefly back to Facebook
• You will notice that the clips I am giving from the
comment thread do not include any of my
comments. That’s because Taleb, due, I guess to
cowardice, blocked all of my comments, so all the
viewer can see is sewage coming out of his mouth
in the direction of one Igor Rivin, but one cannot see
what objectionable commentary provoked it.

13. And in particular
• One does not see that the last circled packet of
drivel was refuted by this link:
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mandelbrot
-set-1990-horgan/
• Which is publicly available for all to read….

14. And in particular…
• and quotes Mandelbrot himself as feebly claiming
the discovery of the Mandelbrot set only slightly after
Brooks-Matelski, and a lot after John Hubbard
(whose role in this I was not aware of, I admit).

15. Notice further
• That instead of admitting his obvious inaccuracy,
Taleb then proceeds to berate your humble
correspondent (bad enough), but also THE WHOLE
MATHEMATICAL PROFESSION.
• In particular, he quite clearly states that
mathematics is just book-keeping, of no interest.
And only charlatans (umm, I mean, geniuses) like
Mandelbrot make the world go round.

16. And underlines the point:

17. • Now, I have pretty wide interests, and some modest
accomplishments, but all of them are due to thinking
like a mathematician: which means, to me:
• Precision and economy of expression
• The search for the truth (most mathematicians do
not claim to invent things, but to discover them).
• The feeling that I have not really understood things,
unless I have understood why things are simple.

18. • So, the people I respect most are (not surprisingly)
mathematicians, which is why I cannot really sit still
when overhyped jerks like Taleb spit at them (and,
in this case, almost literally at me).
• As for Mandelbrot, I have read some of his books,
and he simply is not a mathematician, though I
certainly would not deny that he was an interesting
thinker (and really more of a physicist in the way he
thought). While he was a notoriously unpleasant
person in his own time, it seems that Taleb
succeeds in soiling his memory as well.

19. In conclusion?
• Has New York University now become an accredited
hammam, so that it employs anti-intellectual frauds like
Taleb?
• Is the hatred of mathematics so prevalent in our culture that
NO ONE objected to Taleb’s invective other than yours
truly?
• Can one really fool most of the people most of the time?
• And finally, the reader can see the entire Facebook
discussion (or what I could salvage of it) here:
https://www.evernote.com/pub/igorrivin/mandelcrap