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The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society the empiricist and imbecile-proof one, or even better, a rationalist-proof one.

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
Imagine
Society
Empiricist
Free
Rationalist
Better
Imbecile
Even
Imbeciles
Imagines
Atheist
Proof

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People focus on role models it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up
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It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem to this day I avoid the label Lebanese, preferring the less restrictive Levantine designation.
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I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment.
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People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays, and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse.
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Modernity widened the distance between the sensational and the relevant.
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Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.
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When some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness can unlock them and set them free.
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A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
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When I trade, I don't have an agency problem I have my neck on the line. When a bank or banker trades, it's not his neck on the line.
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Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside.
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Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't finish college. Too much emphasis is placed on formal education - I told my children not to worry about their grades but to enjoy learning.
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The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.
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The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.
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If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
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We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price.
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Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.
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The book is the only medium left that hasn't been corrupted by the profane.
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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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A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.
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Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.
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