The speculator works in Extremistan, the prostitute in Mediocristan.

Mediocristan

This is a land dominated by the middle. Extremes are physically constrained. Uncertainly is of the tame kind, fitting neatly under a bell curve. In Mediocristan most people don't get crazy rich or really poor. Rewards are not scalable. You pretty much get out what you put in. Effort and reward correlate - depending on how many teeth you fill, cars you sell, lines of code you write, johns you service, etc. This is where the middle class supposedly lives and works .

The size of human heads is a phenomenon of Mediocristan. Heads are physically constrained from getting too big or too small. The distribution of head size can be neatly captured on a bell curve.  

The "uncertainty" of a series of coin tosses or the operation of a roulette wheel are also phenomena of Mediocristan.

Extremistan

This is a land dominated by extremes. Physical constraints don't work. Black (or gray) swans rule.

(Gray swans are creatures of non-linear chaos, subject to the rules of Mandelbrotian math. Pure black swans are totally unpredictable. Gray swans are theoretically predictable if you have the math and the computing power. However, practically speaking most gray swans are essentially back swans.)     

The bell curve does not accurately represent Exremistan (having Bill Gates in the room throws off the income curve).

Whereas Mediocristan is basically fair, Extremistan is basically unfair. It is the land of traders and artists, people looking for a Big Score.  It is a land (like the USA) dominated by ideas and luck, where "bottom up tinkering" sometimes (impossible to say when) can pay off big. Wealth is scalable. You can get a lot for a little effort (or nothing for a lifetime of effort - you never know).

Weather takes place in Extremistan. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa and a couple of days later a tornado happens in Kansas.

Most project development occurs in Extremistan.

Asides

Paraphrasing one of Taleb's aside (he offers a lot of asides and parenthetical expressions) - Since reality is neither measured nor reasonable, it might not make much sense to take those approaches to it. To be genuinely empirical means to accept that. To be honorable means not worrying so much about appearances or being outlandish.

My own aside (I also offer a lot of those) - In the new Flat Earth, described by Thomas Friedman, Mediocristan is getting shrunk. Flattening is forcing us more and more into Extremistan.