Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Nassim Taleb (author of Black Swan) on Occupy Wall Street

I have thought about writing on Occupy Wall Street movement for a while but haven't found a good illustration for my point. Occupy Wall Street is a movement which I think has a good foundation of actually changing something and this is because it affects us all. As Nassim Taleb puts it - banking bonuses are like an additional tax for regular people which increases inequality. The main problem with Occupy Wall Street though is the lack of clear and common message. Here's one of my favorite authors Nassim Taleb on Occupy Wall Street (13 minutes but worth to watch).

5 comments:

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  2. Well, there are several messages in the #OWS movement. I like the idea of 'political disobedience'. Look at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-streets-political-disobedience/

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  3. Thanks Q for the link! While I am supportive of change and progress conceptually I don't still quite understand how we could move into a better solution by just resisting politics. There has to be a system to substitute the current one and it has to be better. In my opinion this system needs to be defined in order for the movement to succeed. Still, the most important outcome here might be that people discuss these issues and maybe something good will come out of this. Wouldn't you agree?

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  4. Hi Allan! Albeit I am not sure that any non-Estonian will join our discussion I will reply in English. First of all, I recommend to read coverage of #OWS by Tarmo Jüristo @ Memokraat (http://memokraat.ee/). Tarmo spent a week in Zuccotti park. As You can see, #OWS is not "just resisting" in a sense what a median voter is used to: waving banners, blaming the government, cursing villains and shouting slogans. A serious discussion and work are going on, and they are not flower children by a bonfire (albeit I am sure one can find people like these as well).

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  5. Maybe the problem here is that there is no common message to the public (that's why we see things differently for example). I have heard also from other sources that they are working with activist groups on common messages but the problem of coordination here is serious. Even if there were to be some concrete demands by main activists they would need to work hard in order to make others follow suit (I'm not only talking about people in the same city but people from different places). I am a keen believer in democracy and freedom of speech but the message has to be good and clear in order for it to change something.

    If You have any other good references that You have studied then please share them since I'm trying to follow the developments as closely as I can. You can also use my e-mail address if You wish. Thanks in advance!

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