“ The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don’t learn rules, just facts, and only facts. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ The IYI subscribes to The New Yorker, a journal designed so philistines can learn to fake a conversation about evolution, neurosomething, cognitive biases, and quantum mechanics. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Take a population of 10 people, 9 having a net worth of $ 30,000 and 1 having a net worth of $ 1,000. The average net worth is $ 27,100 and 9 out of 10 people will have above average wealth. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ So, suspecting that Nero had a contract on her, she got herself Mithridatized against the poisons that would have been available to her son’s underlings. Like Mithridates, Agrippina eventually died by… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Note that I am not relying in this book on the beastly method of collecting selective corroborating evidence. ...I call this overload of examples naïve empiricism--successions of anecdotes selected to… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ In a natural environment, people die without aging—or after a very short period of aging. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If you engage in a Black Swan–dependent activity, it is better to be part of a group. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ If there is something in nature you don’t understand, odds are it makes sense in a deeper way that is beyond your understanding. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Convincing - and confident - disciplines, say, physics, tend to use little statistical backup, while political science and economics, which have never produced anything of note, are full of elaborate… Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Later—unlike gardeners, who understand rather well that pruning trees strengthens them. Likewise peace—some kind of forced, constrained, non-natural peace—may be costly in lives: just Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Higher concentration of dopamine appears to lower skepticism and result in greater vulnerability to pattern detection; an Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“ Seneca’s version of that Stoicism is antifragility from fate. No downside from Lady Fortuna, plenty of upside. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
