12 Lessons from Nassim Taleb
Why it's better to die on the battlefield than abandon your soldiers
In episode 003, we’re looking at Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Nassim Taleb is a scholar, former options trader, statistician, and risk analyst. Taleb is known for his work on probabilities, randomness, and risk. Skin in the Game challenges you to have honour; to be willing to bear the risks of your beliefs and actions.
Listen to the episode:
12 Lessons from Skin in the Game:
Freedom is the ability to do what you want with your time. “You want maximal free time, not maximal activity, and you can assess your own “success” according to such metric.”
Don’t live in fear. “Life is sacrifice and risk-taking, and nothing that doesn’t entail some moderate amount of the former, under the constraint of satisfying the latter, is close to what we can call life.”
Courage is standing firm in your convictions even when it’s unpopular. “Sticking up for truth when it is unpopular is far more of a virtue because it costs you something—your reputation.”
The best way to learn is through action. “Never engage in virtue signalling. Never engage in rent-seeking. You must start a business. Put yourself on the line, start a business.”
Attachment is the enemy. “The more you have to lose, the more fragile you are.”
A small group full of conviction and resilience can turn the tide. “Revolutions are unarguably driven by an obsessive minority. And the entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people.”
Don’t live in academic high towers. “You cannot separate knowledge from contact with the ground. Actually, you cannot separate anything from contact with the ground. And contact with the real world is done via skin in the game—having an exposure to the real world, and paying the price for its consequences, good or bad.”
First gain understanding by seeking wisdom. “The curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding.”
Remember the Silver Rule. “The golden rule wants you to treat others the way you would like them to treat you. The more robust Silver Rule says do not treat others the way you would not like them to treat you.”
Practice what you preach. “Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk.”
Have conviction and the courage to stand strong. “If you do not take risks for your opinion, you are nothing… honour implies that there are some actions you would categorically never do, regardless of the material rewards.”
Do not hide risk from others. “Hammurabi’s best-known injunction is as follows: “If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house—the builder shall be put to death.”
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