[B]ecoming more rational, or not feeling the emotions of social slights, is not part of the human race... not with our current biology. There is no s… - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors, but our absence of awareness of it. This is all the more worrisome when we engage in deadly conflicts: wars are fundamentally unpredictable (and we do not know it). Owing to this misunderstanding of the causal chains between policy and actions, we can easily trigger Black Swans thanks to aggressive ignorance-like a child playing with a chemistry kit.

Actually almost everything I've written that has survived was written when I didn't try to get anything done.

France took Algeria, hoping for a country to eat cassoulet and instead France is now eating couscous.