(Though … is it possible that the journalist wrote that because Taleb said “Make sure you mention that I predicted these things”?)
It’s possible but I don’t think it’s likely as it would be a low status move in the interaction. You don’t tell a journalist what he’s supposed to write. You rather provide him with the material he needs to write a story.
It’s in the journalist’s interest to present Taleb as a genius because that makes the interview more important. It makes it more likely that the article get’s shared and get’s pageviews. The fact that he secured an interview with a genius who often rejects interview requests from the media is also important for the relationship the journalist has with his editor.
Yeah, he probably wouldn’t actually have said “Make sure you mention …”. But he might well have taken care to ensure that the journalist knows that he predicted those things.
(Where “knows” might be the wrong word, to whatever extent he didn’t actually predict them.)
Let’s imagine the journalist asked him: “Is it true that you predict the financial crash of 2008?”
Taleb might have answered: “In my book, I wrote that the financial system is likely to blow up. Various journalists described this as me predicting the financial system. I don’t think that it’s possible to predict the exact year when a system crashes.”
Journalists are in the business of simplifying reality for their readers. It’s quite likely that what Taleb told the journalist, in this case, is completely true but the journalist then simplified the complexity of the statement in something that’s optimized to get the highest number of page views.
It’s possible but I don’t think it’s likely as it would be a low status move in the interaction. You don’t tell a journalist what he’s supposed to write. You rather provide him with the material he needs to write a story.
It’s in the journalist’s interest to present Taleb as a genius because that makes the interview more important. It makes it more likely that the article get’s shared and get’s pageviews. The fact that he secured an interview with a genius who often rejects interview requests from the media is also important for the relationship the journalist has with his editor.
Yeah, he probably wouldn’t actually have said “Make sure you mention …”. But he might well have taken care to ensure that the journalist knows that he predicted those things.
(Where “knows” might be the wrong word, to whatever extent he didn’t actually predict them.)
Let’s imagine the journalist asked him: “Is it true that you predict the financial crash of 2008?”
Taleb might have answered: “In my book, I wrote that the financial system is likely to blow up. Various journalists described this as me predicting the financial system. I don’t think that it’s possible to predict the exact year when a system crashes.”
Journalists are in the business of simplifying reality for their readers. It’s quite likely that what Taleb told the journalist, in this case, is completely true but the journalist then simplified the complexity of the statement in something that’s optimized to get the highest number of page views.