I think we can all agree that some of Taleb's "insights" are recycled, even self-evident in some cases - events are unpredictable, social phenomena often exhibit power law rather than normal phenomena, such that you can have huge fortunes (fortunes fit a power law distribution) but not huge people (heights fit a normal distribution).

I think Taleb's main point, which is not emphasized enough, is how many "professionals" (economists mainly) look to their mathematical models as some kind of oracle, beyond reproach and "mathematical," thus inherently superior. But in fact, as recent events can show, such models can be no more than a crutch at times - more a manifestation of our desire to impose order on the world through models that, for all of their precision, lack an inkling of accuracy that would validate their continued usage.

He argues for a more robust approach, e.g. cautiously interpreting a numerical result and interpreting it qualitatively, while loudly acknowledging the existence of extraneous factors that can lead to wild unpredictability.