N. N. Taleb via Twitter says:

True knowledge is mainly removing junk from one’s head. (Subtractive epistemology) @1 year ago
#Taleb #quote #knowledge 

N.N. Taleb says:

If medical schools taught that smoking was good for your health, some (not all) would react. Yet B-Schools still teach financial economics. @1 year ago
#Taleb #quote 

Goldratt and N.N. Taleb’s ‘Life’s Barbells’

Two additions to Nassim N. Taleb’s ‘Life’s Barbells’ (entry #132), as per Goldratt’s Criticial Chain Project Management:

• Work on one task at a time at full speed or stop completely. Don’t apply half-effort or multitask.
• Create a schedule with aggressive task times but add a buffer to project end. Don’t use “safe” (long) task estimates.

@1 year ago
#project management #Goldratt #Taleb #critical chain 

@1 year ago
#Taleb #quote 

Smart vs. Reflexively Smart

There’s a huge difference between being just plain smart (even very smart) and being reflexively smart (self-smart). The latter neologism is intended to convey one’s ability to smartly reflect on oneself, their knowledge, patterns of behavior etc.

As N.N. Taleb has observed in Fooled By Randomness, most very smart people are very self-smart stupid, i.e., in Taleb’s words, “They take their knowledge too seriously”.

This reminds me of Korzybski’s “levels of abstraction” and “consciousness of abstracting” concepts, as well as Bateson’s “levels of learning”.

(I dedicate this post to my dear friend ASK, discussions with whom have had great impact on me.)

@1 year ago
#Bateson #Korzybski #Taleb #smart