life

Time article about Nassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom lists the following ten rules. I want to add some notes to it [inside the brackets].

1. 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.

[This is one of the major themes for Taleb. He says that we should be on a lookout for a major “black swan” like global financial crash or world war but accept and brush off small variation. Interestingly he includes aesthetic in the “small” category. This is an aspiration I agree with, it also goes somewhat contrary to the way humans evolved. Most people tend to obsess about small details, even (particularly) when a huge catastrophe is staring them in the eye.]

2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

[Taleb and his Greek shtick. He uses the word agoraphobia, of fear to go to the agora or square. This is the opposite of claustrophobia or fear of narrow places. Post Jungians like me like to blame introversion.]

3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

[I think what Taleb means is that conformity is the skill that is contrary to what is required to anticipate and feel new and unexpected.]

4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

[I don’t know if it matters that much how person goes (Saddam Hussein was most dignified). Far more important is the road to Golgotha. Don’t betray or kill people on your way there, what pose you strike on your cross is far less important. I don’t think Taleb is sincere in his skepticism about the “aesthetic”.]

5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

[Taleb grew up around Greek Orthodox monastery in Lebanon. It's ok to be autobiographical. But it’s more likely that an old complicated system will pollute and disturb you, not the other way around.]

6. Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

[Nothing to add here.]

7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

[Taleb wants it both ways. On one hand he is playing the role of the dark prophet, who anticipates and speaks about black swans and hates false optimist on the other hand he still advocates relentless trial and error. OK, these are not contradictory.]

8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants… or (again) parties.

[I have written about this already (Top 5 Reasons Your Friend is Very, Very Old). Old people (who were fed mass media with mama’s milk) have a habit of regurgitating front pages of newspapers, and they do it at parties all the time. This is an indicator of people being apes not of significance of the news. But I do get the point about social filtering.]

9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

[Luck and sometimes work, in that order.]

10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

[Better yet, write to old and young that it doesn’t matter if you answer the email. It takes face time to care and that is the only thing that would be remembered in end.]