Further, in countries where wealth comes from rent-seeking, political patronage, or regulatory capture (which, I remind the reader, is how the powerf… - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You can tell people who come from countries w/rent seeking; they think that business is zero-sum: wealth is money taken from others.

If, in some wealthy communities, you run into people who look like cousins, it is more probable that they use the same plastic surgeon.

we discussed this dire problem with education and illusions of academic contribution, with Ivy League universities becoming in the eyes of the new Asian and U.S. upper class a status luxury good. Harvard is like a Vuitton bag or a Cartier watch. It is a huge drag on the middle-class parents who have been plowing an increased share of their savings into these institutions, transferring their money to administrators, real estate developers, professors, and other agents. In the United States, we have a buildup of student loans that automatically transfer to these rent extractors. In a way it is no different from racketeering: one needs a decent university “name” to get ahead in life; but we know that collectively society doesn’t appear to advance with organized education.

Stoicism is about the *domestication* of emotions, not their elimination.