Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Talebis a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader, and risk analyst, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. His 2007 book The Black Swan was described in a review by the Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II...
NationalityLebanese
ProfessionScientist
CountryLebanon
writing people matter
When you write, you don't have the social constraints of having people in front of you, so you talk about abstract matters.
asking matter
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
hate mail matter
What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.
matter imperfect foolish
Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
what-matters people serendipity
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.
serendipity luck
...maximize the serendipity around you.
weakness
It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.
callous designed people provide social turn
In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to turn them into dependents. This doesn't mean that we should be callous to the underprivileged.
functions home human run textbook understood victims view
We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.
noticed
Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn't get anything right.
drop except local
I don't go to the doctor except when I'm very ill, and when I go to India, I drink a drop of local water.
accept false knowledge limits people
The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.
experience looking next recognize solace time
The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.
I have never had personal debt and never will.