Nassim Nicholas Taleb Profile picture
Flaneur: probability (philosophy), probability (mathematics), probability (real life), Phoenician wine, deadlifts & dead languages. Greco-Levantine. #RWRI

Jul 3, 2018, 5 tweets

Attention: Lebanese: Lebanon is much greener today than it was earlier.

I looked at pictures of 1900 vs 2018. This is the Casino in 1961 vs 2018.

More house, more complaints, more trees.

Another striking picture: Amioun 1899 vs 2018. Don't have exactly the same angle but it is the same village (in 2nd picture, to the left).

Note that the church with the dome was destroyed in an earthquake in 1918; rebuilt in a different shape.

EHDEN, in the North: same valley 1836 and my picture 2016. Granted prints might be ignoring greenery.

BEIRUT, BAADBA (then) vs today... Deforestation clearly intensified by the goat/overgrazing.

In #Antifragile: Romans killed lions => goats ruled

Environmentally the place may be a mess (coastal area ar. cities), w/ overbuilding, but one cannot deny that it is much greener.

It is not just the goat.

A lot of logging took place under the Mamluks, Ottomans... Wood was accepted as tax payment by the Ottomans.

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