Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes

Just as eating cow-meat doesn't turn you into a cow, studying philosophy doesn't make you wiser.

Let us call Mithridatization the result of an exposure to a small dose of a substance that, over time, makes one immune to additional, larger quantities of it. It is the sort of approach used in vaccination and allergy medicine. It is not quite antifragility, still at the more modest level of robustness, but we are on our way. And we already have a hint that perhaps being deprived of poison makes us fragile and that the road to robustification starts with a modicum of harm.

I need a new nigga, for this black cloud to follow
cause while it's over me it's too dark to see tomorrow

Probability and expectation are not the same. Its probability and probability times the pay off.

They agree that chess training only improves chess skills but disagree that classroom training (almost) only improves classroom skills.

Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.

Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility.

Some marketing/framing savvy pple figured out that the most effective way to build a fascist movement is to call it: antifascist.

Libertarianism is about replacing authority with laws (legal systems, courts). Hard sciences (math, physics) obey laws, bullshit disciplines (psychology, history, sociology) obey authority. In the absence of, authority evolves to BS. In anything.

Failure-proof is achievable; failure-free is not.

Multiplicative generosity: limit your generosity to those who, in turn, given the circumstances, would be equally generous towards others.

A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox.

My problem isn't with actors so much as with the way they are sudden qualified to dictate stuff to the rest of us.

When I see fraud I say fraud. When I see BS I shout BS. NO intimidation, no smear campaign, no mobbing by fraudsters like Shermer, Harris et al. will make me stop. The more RISK I take for my opinions, the more HONORABLE I feel.

You will get the most attention from those who hate you. No friend, no admirer, and no partner will flatter you with as much curiosity