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Taleb just published a series of aphorisms to go along with Antifragile. It's free here...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/502 ... risms2.pdf

True to his kooky character, he starts out with a warning in red....


NOTICE
Aphorisms are different from conventional text.
The author recommends reading no more than four aphorisms in one sitting.
It is also preferableto select these randomly



Which are your favorites? But don't read more than four, damn you.

Here are a few.

III 24. For life to be really fun, what you fear should line up with what you desire.

V 49. What we commonly call “success” (rewards, status, recognition, some new metric) is a consolation prize for those who are both unhappy and not good at what they do.

VII 67. A heuristic on whether you have control of your life: can you take naps?

XII 107. Another marker for charlatans: they don’t voice opinions that can get them in trouble.

Really enjoyed these.
Finally reading The Black Swan and have requested Antifragile after reading these, all IN ONE GO.
I think I will really enjoy his cynical sense of humour.

The bite of these tends to confirm my belief that we live in an age of waste and vanity, but mostly the latter. (Not that either is anything new.)

For my pick, I'll just go with this one:

"V 45. Success in all endeavors requires the absence of specific qualities. 1) To succeed in
crime requires absence of empathy, 2) To succeed in banking you need absence of shame at
hiding risks, 3) To succeed in school requires absence of common sense, 4) To succeed in
economics requires absence of understanding of probability, risk, second-order effects, or about
anything, 5) To succeed in journalism requires an inability to think about matters that have even
an infinitesimally small chance of being relevant next January, 6) But to succeed in life requires
a total inability to do anything that makes you uncomfortable when you look at yourself in the
mirror."

He has written a whole book of these before, called "The Bed of Procrustes": http://www.amazon.com/The-Bed-Procruste ... 1400069971

He really seems to have a problem with academics, economists, and people who earn a salary.

XXI 212. What counts is not what people say about you, it is how much energy they spend in saying it.

Ego wrote:Which are your favorites? But don't read more than four, damn you.

I couldn't help it

VII 72. Life is about early detection of the reversal point beyond which your own
belongings (say, a house, country house, car, or business) start owning you.

Taleb cracks me up.

I pick these two:

193. Those with no brains and no balls become mathematicians, those with balls and no brains join the Mafia, those with no balls and no brains become economists.

205. The only people who think real world experience doesn't matter are those who never had real world experience.

In the 20 years between getting my B.S in mathematics and a score of 790 on the math section of the GRE (indicative of not quite enough brains to become a mathematician) and then attempting a graduate program in economics, I raised two children to adulthood, put in some time working for a corporation, and started/ran my own very small business. The grouchy old Russian mathematician who was assigned to me as adviser (I had to enter dual degree program due to lack of earlier coursework in economics) almost quoted 193 verbatim to me, minus the part about balls, likely because I clearly don't have any.- lol.

I also found 205 to be very applicable to the difference between running even a very small business and doing coursework in economics. In a basic course I took for review, the professor was explaining the "rule" of entrepreneurship that has to do with the "natural" flow of resources from a less successful entrepreneur to a more successful entrepreneur, and I raised my hand and said "Yes, that is very true. I was renting space for my rare book business in a converted garage that was divided into different sized rental units in a modular fashion. The entrepreneur who was running the business next to me sold supplies for hydroponic growing of marijuana, frequently swore and issued commands to his underlings in a very gruff manner and arranged for government subsidized mentally challenged workers to be delivered by bus to pack his products. Next thing I knew, my landlord was asking me if I could give up some of my space because he needed more." Then, when I took a more advanced class, one thing I noted was that there are a lot of economic situations that are much easier to explain with words than to model with mathematics. For instance, a business that sells 10,000 unique items in quantity of 1 with only intermittent but fairly urgent demand on the open, free world-wide market.

Anyways, I did not see a rule for who can write aphorisms, so I have composed one myself.

1. Those with some brains and tiny balls are most likely to get a free lunch when dining with either mathematicians or members of the Mafia.

Reminds me that if you have never read La Rochefoucauld's "Maxims", they are worth looking at.

If you are unfamiliar with him, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEvFA7laik

Taleb's commencement address at American University of Beirut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_yUUNfEwok

“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”