I think the distinction between those who have "skin in the game" and those who survive on arbitrary indicators of prestige is an important one
culturally, but especially as applied to Trump, I still think it's weird Taleb doesn't address any distance between
perceived skin in the game and actual. Saying "Trump's a businessman who takes real risks, Krugman's just a writer who will never answer for mistakes" ignores that Trump is a media figure at least as much as he's a businessman, and has put effort his entire career towards presenting that image (as a businessman who takes real risks) regardless of the truth. Is Trump really more likely to end up going to a soup kitchen than Krugman? Are the elaborate terms of his bankruptcies really "losing your own money, not someone else's?" Or is he just trying to present himself that way?
I agree that there's a serious problem in society of people coasting on their arbitrary degrees/status/reputation in a way that lets them take no responsibility for their mistakes; see Theranos/general examples of VCs focusing on style over meritocracy, see diploma mills and rent-seeking prestige colleges, see Ross Douthat's career (if the mainstream media wants to restore faith and trust, the best thing they could do would be to fire people who continue to screw up...) But the other issue, of resentment against the mandarin class, people waking up and getting angry against those without skin in the game; that's a matter of perception, not reality. Heck, Trump switching to the Apprentice after facing bankruptcy seems exactly the sort of coasting based on arbitrary celebrity Taleb might despise in a different context. If we want to understand the effects of the mandarin class, we should figure out not just who has "skin in the game" or not, but the level of cultural and media fluff that leads people to believe that someone has skin in the game or not.
I agree that there's a serious problem in society of people coasting on their arbitrary degrees/status/reputation in a way that lets them take no responsibility for their mistakes; see Theranos/general examples of VCs focusing on style over meritocracy, see diploma mills and rent-seeking prestige colleges, see Ross Douthat's career (if the mainstream media wants to restore faith and trust, the best thing they could do would be to fire people who continue to screw up...) But the other issue, of resentment against the mandarin class, people waking up and getting angry against those without skin in the game; that's a matter of perception, not reality. Heck, Trump switching to the Apprentice after facing bankruptcy seems exactly the sort of coasting based on arbitrary celebrity Taleb might despise in a different context. If we want to understand the effects of the mandarin class, we should figure out not just who has "skin in the game" or not, but the level of cultural and media fluff that leads people to believe that someone has skin in the game or not.