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21fa681
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There is asymmetry. Those who die do so very early in the game, while those who live go on living very long. Whenever there is asymmetry in outcomes, the average survival has nothing to do with the median survival.
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probability
success-failure-work
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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1a135dc
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The opposite of manliness isn't cowardice; it's technology.
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modernity
technology
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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ded4a41
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In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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157953b
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A mathematician starts with a problem and creates a solution; a consultant starts by offering a "solution" and creates a problem."
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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8b6fc20
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We ingest probiotics because we don't eat enough "dirt" anymore." --
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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a195a02
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The chief ethical rule is the following: Thou shalt not have antifragility at the expense of the fragility of others.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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076ab54
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If humans fight the last war, nature fights the next one.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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09283f3
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The problem with information is not that it is diverting and generally useless, but that it is toxic.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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b0f65ad
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For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constr..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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a00c1f2
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The only definition of rationality that I've found that is practically, empirically, and mathematically rigorous is the following: what is rational is that which allows for survival. Unlike modern theories by psychosophasters, it maps to the classical way of thinking. Anything that hinders one's survival at an individual, collective, tribal, or general level is, to me, irrational.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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2d7ae50
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How much you truly "believe" in something can be manifested only through what you are willing to risk for it."
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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9b63f4c
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Rational flaneur (or just flaneur): Someone who, unlike a tourist, makes a decision opportunistically at every step to revise his schedule (or his destination) so he can imbibe things based on new information obtained. In research and entrepreneurship, being a flaneur is called "looking for optionality."
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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6ef0c03
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Alexander said that it was preferable to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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13819c2
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Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do--except, of course, when we think about it.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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6db102d
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In an antique city-state, or a modern municipality, shame is the penalty for the violation of ethics--making things more symmetric. Banishment and exile, or, worse, ostracism were severe penalties--people did not move around voluntarily and considered uprooting a horrible calamity. In larger organisms like the mega holy nation-state, with a smaller role for face-to-face encounters, and social roots, shame ceases to fulfill its duty of disci..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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43566df
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In the past, only some of the males, but all of the females, were able to procreate. Equality is more natural for females.
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equity
femininity
feminism
history
past
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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c6198bb
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Pasteur said, like all great discoverers, he knew something about accidental discoveries. The best way to get maximal exposure is to keep researching. Collect opportunities--
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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ea28b7d
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History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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b37eee3
|
Decentralization is based on the simple notion that it is easier to macrobull***t than microbull***t. Decentralization reduces large structural asymmetries.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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adc08dd
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Increasingly, data can only truly deliver via negativa-style knowledge--it can be effectively used to debunk, not confirm.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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f5eed5c
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It is not what you are telling people, it is how you are saying it.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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a0215b2
|
We favor the sensational and the extremely visible. This affects the way we judge heroes. There is little room in our consciousness for heroes who do not deliver visible results--or those heroes who focus on process rather than results.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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a500890
|
The excess energy released from overreaction to setbacks is what innovates!
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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022e93a
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What I learned on my own I still remember.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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59b735c
|
Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter--it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up , for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that ..
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writing
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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f6461a9
|
People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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06c7da4
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In a thick and captivating book, La rebellion francaise, the historian Jean Nicolas shows how the culture of rioting was extremely sophisticated--historically, it counts as the true French national sport.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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e300073
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Almost all people answer that the opposite of "fragile" is "robust", "resilient", "solid", or something of the sort. But the resilient, robust (and company) items that neither break nor improve, so you would not need to write anything on them--have you ever seen a package with "robust" in thick green letters stamped on it? Logically, the exact opposite of a "fragile" parcel would be a package on which one has written "please mishandle" or "..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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4a8dfa1
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So just as Stoicism is the domestication, not the elimination, of emotions, so is the barbell a domestication, not the elimination, of uncertainty.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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c167fcc
|
Note another element of Switzerland: it is perhaps the most successful country in history, yet it has traditionally had a very low level of university education compared to the rest of the rich nations. Its system, even in banking during my days, was based on apprenticeship models, nearly vocational rather than the theoretical ones. In other words, on techne (crafts and know how), not episteme (book knowledge, know what).
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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ceb7cd1
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When you walk the walk, whether successful or not, you feel more indifferent and robust to people's opinion, freer, more real.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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f7cba72
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Let us return to pathemata mathemata (learning through pain) and consider its reverse: learning through thrills and pleasure. People have two brains, one when there is skin in the game, one when there is none. Skin in the game can make boring things less boring. When you have skin in the game, dull things like checking the safety of the aircraft because you may be forced to be a passenger in it cease to be boring. If you are an investor in ..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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8b9e52a
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it is only when you don't care about your reputation that you tend to have a good one.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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ad49dd3
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It seems that it is the most unsuccessful people who give the most advice, particularly for writing and financial matters.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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57d1630
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But they never notice the following inconsistency: this so-called worst-case event, when it happened, exceeded the worst case at the time.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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dfe8ab4
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Complex systems are full of interdependencies--hard to detect--and nonlinear responses.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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b7a2c56
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Those who believe in the unconditional benefits of past experience should consider this pearl of wisdom allegedly voiced by a famous ship's captain: But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident... of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. E. J...
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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c6ecac7
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Many amateurs believe that plants and animals reproduce on a one-way route toward perfection. Translating the idea in social terms, they believe that companies and organizations are, thanks to competition (and the discipline of the quarterly report), irreversibly heading toward betterment. The strongest will survive; the weakest will become extinct. As to investors and traders, they believe that by letting them compete, the best will prospe..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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1cef4ba
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A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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fc15b97
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My dream--the solution--is that we would have a National Entrepreneur Day, with the following message: Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are at the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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efcc203
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One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." Statistics stay silent in us."
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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fb6b995
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You can imagine how distraught I feel when I hear about the glorified heroism-free "middle class values," which, thanks to globalization and the Internet, have spread to any place easily reached by British Air, enshrining the usual opiates of the deified classes: "hard work" for a bank or a tobacco company, diligent newspaper reading, obedience to most, but not all, traffic laws, captivity in some corporate structure, dependence on the opin..
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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08d071e
|
Just as in matters of seduction, people lend the most to those who need them the least.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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df8328d
|
What should we control? As a rule, intervening to limit size (of companies, airports, or sources of pollution), concentration, and speed are beneficial in reducing Black Swan risks.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |