The Bed of Procrustes

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's collection of aphorisms and meditations takes its title from Procrustes, the figure in Greek mythology who stretched or cut his guests' bodies to fit his bed. Taleb applies the image to modern civilization's hubris: reshaping people to suit technology, faulting reality when it does not match economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, measuring intelligence by classroom tests and persuading people that a job is not slavery. He contrasts courage, elegance and erudition, which he treats as classical values, with nerdiness, philistinism and phoniness. The book belongs to his five-volume Incerto alongside Antifragile, Skin in the Game, The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness; an updated edition added half again as much material.

Naval Ravikant mentioned reading it in a podcast interview and said he sort of likes Taleb's gathering of ancient wisdom. CommonLounge co-founder Anant Jain also cited Taleb's Incerto series, which includes it, in a Book-Talk interview.