[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] He’s also a reformed Stalinist who is pretty conservative now.
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That’s one of the reasons I really like Hitchens. Because he’s gone from one extreme to the other (well, almost the other – I think he classifies himself as a quasi-libertarian). And it’s been a very public, well-chronicled shift.
And I’ve made the same shift, so I can empathize. I was a quasi-socialist in college then became a mindless libertarian, and now I’m more of a very small-l libertarian, but with a penchant for pragmatism.
Actually, Taleb’s first book pulled me toward the center most recently, as I think he did a very good job of illustrating in clear prose the role of luck and randomness in success and society, and how we humans are wired to underappreciate this. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe Reagan’s observation that, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” But, pure luck – the kind that’s purely random – also plays a larger role than most of us would like to admit.
