Intellect without balls is like a racecar without tires. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you want to get an idea of a friend's temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life. Can you assess the danger a criminal poses by examining only what he does on an ordinary day? Can we understand health without considering wild diseases and epidemics? Indeed the normal is often irrelevant.

Realism is punishing. Probabilistic skepticism is worse.

We ingest probiotics because we don’t eat enough “dirt” anymore.