Taleb position of the topic is complicated.

He's a influential public intellectual. He advocates a style of engaging the 21st century intellectual discourse that useful if you want to become an influential public intellectual.

You become a public intellectual these days by making polarized points that allow people to engage with those points. If you add a lot of qualifications to what you are saying, people don't listen to you.

If you have critics that means that people are listen to you. Having critics is not a bad thing is you want to be a public intellectual. Nassim would say that the business of being a public intellectual is anti-fragile.

If you have found something for which critics will attack you, you have PR. Ryan Holiday worked as a PR person for Tucker Max and did thinks like defacing Tucker Max posters and in general making sure to increase the amount of feminists who criticize Tucker Max.

To be a public intellectual you have to make some points better than other people. It's an effective strategy to focus all of your energy on being able to make some points as strongly as possible.

Instead of "your critics will attack you for this" it's more important to focus on whether your fans will like you for saying something. If you aren't saying anything meaningful to have fans, you lose on the road of becoming a public intellectual.

On the other hand Taleb does advocate that you read more books that you disagree with than reading books you agree with, because you will learn more from views you disagree with than from people who already share your views.