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The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 11
Author
Economist
Essayist
Mathematician
Philosopher
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Nassim Nicholas Najib Taleb
Nassim Taleb
Inability
Courses
Course
History
Outliers
Implies
Predict

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It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.
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The bonus for bankers fragilizes the system. Someone has the upside at the expense of others.
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Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.
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Injecting some confusion stabilizes the system.
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Philosophers talk about truth and falsehood. People in life talk about payoff, exposure, and consequences (risks and rewards), hence fragility and antifragility. And sometimes philosophers and thinkers and those who study conflate Truth with risks and rewards.
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Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic. Don't pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific 'evidence'.
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The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. 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
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There is no effective difference between guessing a variable that is not random, but for which information is partial or deficient, and a random one. In this sense, guessing (what I don't know, but what someone else may know) and predicting (what has not taken place yet) are the same thing.
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The same past data can confirm a theory and its exact opposite! If you survive until tomorrow, it could mean that either a) you are more likely to be immortal or b) that you are closer to death.
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Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
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Maximum of an average is necessarily less volatile than the average maximum
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Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea.
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There are systems that use failure as fuel for improvement, where the cost of failure is small.
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Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science.
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The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.
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The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started in the investment business (in place of going to dental school), rather than on their ability to produce profits.
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The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.
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A washing machine needs constant maintenance. It doesn't want any harm. It wants tranquility, and you need someone to - you're not going to harm it by continuously monitoring it and adjusting it.
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Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.
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