The Black Swans we imagine, discuss, and worry about do not resemble those likely to be Black Swans. We worry about the wrong improbable events, as
Technology is the result of antifragility, exploited by risk-takers in the form of tinkering and trial and error, with nerd-driven design confined to the backstage.
Statin drugs are meant to lower cholesterol in your blood. But there is an asymmetry, and a severe one. One needs to treat fifty high risk persons for five years to avoid a single cardiovascular event...
Someone with a high public presence who is controversial and takes risks for his opinion is less likely to be a bullshit vendor.
Some business bets in which one wins big but infrequently, yet loses small but frequently, are worth making if others are suckers for them and if you have the personal and intellectual stamina.
So we can learn a lot from data—but not as much as we expect. Sometimes a lot of data can be meaningless; at other times one single piece of information can be very meaningful. It
Should we go into people’s inner and private thoughts and motivations, we would see that their wishes and hopes are almost invariably at someone else’s expense.
Sei vivo in proporzione inversa alla densità delle frasi fatte che usi nei tuoi scritti
Science isn't the sum of what scientists think, but exactly as with markets. Had science operated by majority consensus, we would be still stuck in the Middle Ages.
Sanallinen uhka on aidon voimattomuuden sertifikaatti.
Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.
Randomness can be of considerable help with the matter. For there is another, far more entertaining way to make the distinction between the babbler and the thinker. You can sometimes replicate somethi...
Prediction, not narration, is the real test of our understanding of the world.
Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to start developing those technologies right away. Erg...
People with too much smoke and complicated tricks and methods in their brains start missing elementary, very elementary things. Persons in the real world can’t afford to miss these things; otherwise t...
Paris itself was barely controlled by France—no more than the Rio slums called favelas are currently ruled by the Brazilian central state.
Our problem is not just that we do not know the future, we do not know much of the past either. We
One general, Fabius Maximus was nicknamed Cunctator, the Procrastinator. He drove Hannibal, who had an obvious military superiority, crazy by avoiding and delaying engagement.
One day in the 1980s I had dinner with a famous speculator, a hugely successful man. He muttered the hyperbole that hit home: much of what other people know isn’t worth knowing.
Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference.