Nassim Nicholas Taleb

From Terraciano et al. I inferred that the similarities are mostly within professions, not so much within nationalities: a prostitute from Dallas is going to be far more similar (in her behavior) to a prostitute from Cannes than to an accountant from Dallas; a philosopher from New York will be more similar to a philosopher from Bombay than to a New York trader, etc.

I was clearly the victim of the nationality fallacy in the New Yorker profile (Gladwell) that attributed my ideas (and trading style) to my Lebanese background & the war – given that it was so salient. I then searched & found 30 Christian Lebanese traders of my generation – all (I mean all) of them sell tail options (i.e. bet against the Black Swan). On the other hand my associate Mark Spitznagel is from the MidWest.

Heuristic: in any profession, 90% of the people are clueless but work by situational imitation, narrow mimicry, and semi-conscious role-playing, except for academia where it is 99% and journalism where it is about 100%.

Life is a tighrope between two errors: generalizing the wrong particular and particularizing the wrong general.

Did any of your business-smart, street-wise or academically-gifted peers in high school declare that their dream was to go work for Ketchum the P.R. firm and become the world’s expert in smearing whistleblowers? Or even work as a lobbyist or public relation expert? These jobs are indicative of necessary failure in other things.

Math is distortion-free, which repels the distorters.

When I was in business, colleagues and associates talked about arts and literature; when I became an author all they talked about was money; in academia where I am now all they talk about is rank and power.

Business (as a barbell with plenty free time on the side) has been the purest way to engage in intellectual life.

It is a myth that markets are there for the discovery of “the” price. Markets are there so we can keep changing opinion about the price.

The ultimate test of freedom is whether you <em>have to</em> explain why you did something.

To have a stable social life, filter out those who get easily offended by offending them early on.

I came up with the definition of true freedom. You encounter true freedom in the following way: when what stops you from the expression of your real opinion is not fear of position (in employment) nor need to preserve a reputation (say in business, politics or academia) but merely tact and social elegance. You don’t say it because you care & do not want to hurt other people’s feelings.

Thierry de la Villehuchet – an acquaintance of mine – just killed himself in the aftereffects of the Madoff case. He had dragged his clients into investing with Madoff . “Killing himself over money?” I kept hearing. No, it is not about the money –it was other people’s money. It is about dignity. I could not help comparing it to Madoff, pictured walking around Manhattan with a faint smirk –totally insensitive to the harm he caused.

This is an aristocratic act coming from an aristocratic character: you take your own life when you believe that you failed somewhere – and the solution is to inflict the ultimate penalty on yourself. It is not the money; but the embarrassment, the shame, the guilt that are hard to bear. Someone callous, indifferent to the harm done to others would have lived comfortably (“it is all about money”). A life of shame is not worth living. Christianity never allowed suicide; the stoics did –it allows a man to get the last word with fate.

I am only impressed by a man’s two attributes: courage & erudition. I disrespect those who lack the former, & crave the company of those endowed with the latter. Erudition is wealth, robust knowledge, being alive; it is organic diversification & signals open mindedness.

The Golden Rule (do to others what you want them to do to you) is an invitation to interventionism, utopianism, and meddling into other people’s affairs, particularly poor nations, as represented by the people at the NGO clowns at TED conferences trying to “save the world”, and causing more harm with unseen side effects. Remember that Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and were following the positive Golden rule. At the personal level, I may feel good forcing a vegetarian to eat raw kebbeh (Lebanese steak tartare) because I like it myself.

The Silver rule (do NOT do to others what you don’t want them to do to you) leads to a systematic way to live “doing no harm” and gives rise to a liberating type of ethics: your obligation is to pursue your personal interests provided you do not hurt others, do not transfer risks to them. But, and here is the key, should there be a spillover, it will necessarily be positive. It is therefore convex. It separates the “self-interest” in Adam Smith from the “selfish” version. And if you want to help society, just try to benefit WHILE at least harming no one.

This distinction puts a lot of clarity behind the idea of free markets and morality. You should never have to prove that what you do is GOOD for society (hard to express in words and rationalistic framework), but you can certainly show you are NOT hurting others more than yourself via skin-in-the-game.

RESOLUTIONS 2015 [1st DRAFT]

1. Call someone who has no friends, just to say hello, letting the person know that you do not need anything specific from him/her. Have coffee with lonely people twice a month.

2. Do not read more than one new book a week –if needed re-read (and read no book you wouldn’t reread). Read no book written by, or co-authored with, a journalist. Do not do write more than 2 hours a day. Do not do mathematics more than 4 hours in any given day. Walk 2 hours every day regardless of weather. Do not go the gym more than 5 times in any given month and/or do not spend more than 30 minutes per visit.

3. Fast one day every week on average. Eat meat only on festivals, but then splurge.

4. Respect the janitor more than the chairman and respect those who respect the janitor more than the chairman.

5. Do not read the latest “breakthrough” experiment in psychology about, say, the effect of taking cold showers on grammatical ability. Better even read nothing about these “experiments”.

6. Pick a lobbyist (preferably Monsanto/GMO) or some economist harmful to the collective and make life mis- erable for him, especially if the reaction entails some personal and reputational risks for you.

7. Give to someone who needs money but doesn’t ask for it while finding an excuse to preserve his/her dignity.

8. Use courage and wisdom, not labor, for your income.

9. Humiliate people who define success in any other way than honor. In the end realize that you are only as valuable as the risks you are taking for the sake of others.

So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith. The reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky thanks to aggressive trial and error not by giving rewards or incentives for skill. The strategy is then to tinker and try to collect as many black swan opportunities as you can.