Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets,” Random House, 2005.

“I detest the practice of random use of borrowed wisdom…” (p. viii)

“I believe that the principal asset I need to protect and cultivate is my deep-seated intellectual insecurity.” (p. ix)

“Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; i is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance.” (p. x)

“…this business of journalism is about pure entertainment, not a search for truth, particularly when it comes to radio and television.” (p. xvi)

“Before the ‘enlightenment’ and the age of rationality, there was in the culture a collection of tricks to deal with our fallibility and reversals of fortune.” (p. xlvi)

“Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists – or anyone.” (p. 92)

“Science is mere speculation, mere formulation of conjecture.” (p. 128)

“It [Kafka’s The Trial] projected a scary future of mankind wrapped in absurd self-feeding bureaucracies, with spontaneously emerging rules subjected to the internal logic of the bureaucracy.” (p. 205)