This is a good old piece with a light-take on the pathology of our "organizationally" driven lives and the results of said processes. I think that Dr. Taleb writes in all-wheel-drive satire giving himself an opportunity for plausible deniability of sorts from a direct mounted attack by those whose egos are hit by such message. Nevertheless, those on the inside, who live this everyday, know that it is not a satire, but the very reality of things. Sure, there are islands of pure competency, those who carry the torch of light through the hallways of darkness in the machinery, but those are never (literally by natural law) at the levels of decision/policy/politics making (or very short lived if they do make it there). However, I would point out that observations of Mr. Taleb's are not very novel. In fact, it has been convincingly argued that this is a result of the way organization/society crystallizes into its functional form. The intellecutals serve a distinguished and known role in a society. They produce justifications/rationalisations for the decisions taken or to be take by the ruling elites. In turn they are given "prestige" for this role. Intelectualls (as is known from history) are the first to suffer obliteration when a revolution occurs in a given territory. The old have to be replaced by new ones -- and these then continue their role for the new government. Intelectualls, as a class or a layer in a society are (in potentiality) the most dangerous layer, and are distrusted (deservedly so by all the other layers of society with exception when overseeing rituals, be it secular or religious of a given society). A survey of historical records demonstrate that every time the intellectual class takes the role of ruling class, a murderous genocidal governments and ideologies are in order (think of religions which was intellectual class of the old, Eugenics, etc). Why this happens is also clear (but I would diverge too much).<p>If in the future (which I hope for), the world would become a global village, this problem is not going to disappear, but rather has to be resolved; put into a solid (natural) theory and taught at elementary schools (a naive view I admit). Bureaucracy, the distilled mediocrity, the 1/2 organized corruption of governments, and our impulse for scorn, are in fact the very cornerstone of modern civilization. Intelectual idiots (are not a new phenomena) and will remain and thrive in their role of supporting the elites (and by their nature, will bring havoc if they become the elite class for what ever short period of time).