Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Risk Quotes

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It is now the scientific consensus that our risk-avoidance mechanism is not mediated by the cognitive modules of our brain, but rather by the emotional ones. This may have made us fit for the Pleistocene era. Our risk machinery is designed to run away from tigers; it is not designed for the information-laden modern world.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
At no point in history have so many non-risk-takers, that is, those with no personal exposure, exerted so much control.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is the central illusion in life: that randomness is a risk, that it is a bad thing...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he takes for his opinion.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Unlike a well-defined, precise game like Russian roulette, where the risks are visible to anyone capable of multiplying and dividing by six, one does not observe the barrel of reality.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Much of the research into humans' risk-avoidance machinery shows that it is antiquated and unfit for the modern world; it is made to counter repeatable attacks and learn from specifics. If someone narrowly escapes being eaten by a tiger in a certain cave, then he learns to avoid that cave.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Our greatest asset is the one we distrust the most: the built-in antifragility of certain risk-taking systems.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability, they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Consider that the turkey's experience may have, rather than no value, a negative value. It learned from observation, as we are all advised to do (hey, after all, this is what is believed to be the scientific method). Its confidence increased as the number of friendly feedings grew, and it felt increasingly safe even though the slaughter was more and more imminent. Consider that the feeling of safety reached its maximum when the risk was at the highest!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Philosophers talk about truth and falsehood. People in life talk about payoff, exposure, and consequences (risks and rewards), hence fragility and antifragility. And sometimes philosophers and thinkers and those who study conflate Truth with risks and rewards.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb