Man has three ways of acting wisely. First, on meditation; that is the noblest. Secondly, on imitation; that is the easiest. Thirdly, on experience; that is the bitterest.

Consensus among experts is often nothing more than one social approval game in a network of influencers.

William Glasser – Control Theory

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed

Ernest Hemingway

Statistics isn’t about discovering correlations, it’s about eliminating coincidence. Removing BS, like the correlation is not causation mantra.

Correlation is not correlation.

All risks are not equal. Risk is subjective.

Risk is a human thing and probability is its logic.

Risk is about asymmetries. There are more than 20 types of financial risks.

Risk manage: use what you don’t see to make decisions. In order to be dealt with, risk needs to be at least partially quantified.

You can get the timing and direction right but miss the severity. Risk happens fast.

Risk transferers:
– Executives getting bonused then bailed out by the public.
– Middle management hiding their incompetence by firing their managers.
– Doctors profiting off iatrogenics.
– Architects impressing other architects.

It’s all about skin in the game.

You cannot really reason with youth.

They look through the lens of emotion.

Youth lacks exposure to time.

Lack of time means lack of perspective.

You are honorable in proportion to the number of people to whom you can say “fuck you” with impunity but don’t.

Nassim Taleb

Capitalism is in essence chaotic. Entrepreneurs are convex, their pursuits are fragile. They are risk-takers with skin in the game.

Beware the fake entrepreneur only interested in packaging and selling companies.

You maintain manners because you contain your inner selfish desires to yourself. You empathize with another person. You empower them to feel free in your presence.

By Ase Deliri

Recovering and recovery rate is resilience, antifragile what gets stronger. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better

Robust and anti-fragile are distinct, though not orthogonal, concepts. A robust system is resistant to stress. An anti-fragile system constructively adapts to stress.

Bottom-up coherence is ANTIFRAGILE