

Aphorisms, Rules, and Heuristics - soneca
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8nhAlfIk3QIODdHYl95d1dWNE0

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gatehouse
_Running commentary_

9\. It is quite a predicament to be both evil and risk averse.

 _This basically explains 4chan_

41\. One of life's machinations is to make some people both rich and unhappy,
that is, jointly fragile and deprived of hope.

43\. High Modernity: routine in place of physical effort, physical effort in
place of mental expenditure, & mental expenditure in place of mental clarity.

 _It 's hard to get clarity out of someone who doesn't share your
abstractions, it's hard to get effort out of someone who doesn't share your
goals_

47\. Life is about execution rather than purpose.

52\. Used skillfully, a compliment will be much more offensive than any
disparagement.

 _As a Canadian I know this, and I am tempted to learn Japanese because I
think it will take me to the next level_

63\. The ultimate freedom lies in not having to explain "why" you did
something.

69\. Saying someone good at making profits but not good at managing risk is
like saying someone is a great surgeon except for cases when the patients die.

75\. The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in
power without suffering from it.

 _I disagree, and I bet he wouldn 't say this about a hedge fund_

88\. An economist is a mixture of 1) a businessman without common sense, 2) a
physicist without brain, and 3) a speculator without balls.

110\. If you detect a repressed smile on the salesperson's face, you paid too
much for it.

 _Competition: escalate if they 're happy. Love: escalate if they're sad._

112\. If powerful assholes don't find you "arrogant", it means you are doing
something wrong.

125\. In a conflict, the middle ground is least likely to be correct.

 _A compromise between two sane solutions can easily produce an insane
solution_

129\. Intellect without balls is like a racecar without tires.

163.Journalists reporting on journalism (such as the NYT intrigue) is an
unconscious form of onanism.

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

191\. In the days of Suetonius, 60% of prominent educators (grammarians) were
slaves. Today the ratio is 97.1%, and growing.

------
VMG
For those who want a some insight into the man without reading one of his
books, I recommend the Econtalk podcasts where he is a guest

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/nassim_taleb/](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/nassim_taleb/)

------
parker94
"Never hire an A student unless it is for taking exams"

I understand the idea they're trying to get across but that's a terrible
saying

------
read
The biggest gem for me is this:

    
    
      193. A writer told me "I didn't get anything done today".
      Answer: try to do nothing. The best way to have only good
      days is to not aim at getting anything done.
    
      Actually almost everything I've written that has survived
      was written when I didn't try to get anything done.
    

This happened to me trying to craft aphorisms. There's some sort of inverse
psychological effect where the more direct you are in what you pursue, the
harder it becomes to achieve it. It's as if by being direct you suppress what
your unconscious is quietly brewing.

Pg had said it's hard to write quotes, because they are so dense, like one-
line essays. I suspect he meant it's hard to come up with one consciously.
It's surprising how easy it is to spot an aphorism when you aren't really
looking. Big revelations come when you least expect them.

To me aphorisms feel like conclusions that help you move forward. No aphorism,
no direction.

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triplesec
These are contextless gnomic utterances, which are not prima facie
uncontroversial and therefore mostly useless to us. Why should we care? We
want reasoning here surely, and perhaps some supporting data rather than a set
of rules from somebody with financial acumen but it seems limited social
insight. I suspect this author Mr Taleb has an ego of gargantuan proportions.

~~~
read
Operating with partial context is not only part of real life, but also a
branch of mathematical logic called computability theory. That's far from
useless.

We should also care because social insight often comes from relative
comparisons. They let us compare things without having precise data. For
example, people growing indignant is often a sign they don't understand a
topic well, which is generally true without knowing the particular person
involved.

One of my favorites from this list is the following, which is also supported
by research on vulnerability[1]:

 _It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness._

[1] -
[https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability](https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability)

------
riemannzeta
I can't remember reading anything more pompous.

------
soneca
About the changed title: These aren't random Aphorisms and Heuristics (my
original title was "Nassim Taleb's 201 (and counting) Aphorisms and Heuristics
compilation"

Nassim Taleb is compiling his own aphorisms in this document. And he said that
when he reachs 500 he will write a new book. Awful title change.

source:
[https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1015221578...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10152215786363375&id=13012333374&fref=nf)

~~~
dang
It was you who changed the title. If the author had wanted to call it "Nassim
Taleb's 201 (and counting) Aphorisms and Heuristics compilation", he would
have. Since he didn't, we replaced it with the original, as the HN guidelines
request.

The way to supply context for a story you're submitting is not to stuff it in
the title, but to post it as a comment to the thread. Had you done that here,
you could have shared with us the Facebook link where Taleb describes what
he's doing. That would have been more informative, and in keeping with the HN
guidelines as well.

~~~
anigbrowl
I much prefer context in the title, and find this antipathy to editorial
headline construction ridiculous. I'm not likely to open a thread just because
there's one comment on it, and the original title is so generic as to be
uninteresting.

