The subtitle is Hidden
Asymmetries in Daily Life and the author is Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2018).
Taleb is a really smart guy who is libertarian and unapologetically anti-academic
and anti-political correctness. What he
focuses on in this book is how he is bothered by the growing reality that people
with control these days often have the least skin in the game. Accordingly, they can casually dismiss and
ultimately lack the ability to understand how their decisions can have terrible
interactions and second- and third-order effects. And while a theory can sound great and gets
them points in their echo chamber, they do not bear the burden of the problems
that follow.
By contrast, he admires those who risk, who try
and fail as part of learning what has sustainability and real value. As he puts it: “evolution can only happen if the risk of extinction is present”. And what that can often mean is bucking
convention and going against consensus.
It is scary and uncomfortable, but where the upside lies. Competence comes from taking risks, and it is
far more important to do than to talk.
