Capitalism has forced everyone to overoptimize in order to compete. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I'm a capitalist but one who is smallist and localist, and who favours businesses where owners are still in charge. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Someone bemoaned that there were so few women in economics. But there are also very few men in economics. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Capitalism is about adventurers who get harmed by their mistakes, not people who harm others with their mistakes. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The track record of economists in predicting events is monstrously bad. It is beyond simplification; it is like medieval medicine. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn't get anything right. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Adam Smith himself made the analogy of the economy as a watch or a clock that once set in motion continues on… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
What we do today has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. It is a crony type of system that transfers money… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Is the economy something organic or is it something engineered? I think it's closer to the organic. You harm it by artificially… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Capitalism is, among other things, the revitalization of the world thanks to the opportunity to be lucky. Luck is the grand equalizer,… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Until recent history, the central state represented about 5 percent of the economy. ...and further, governments were sufficiently distracted by war to leave… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The virtue of capitalism is that society can take advantage of people’s greed rather than their benevolence, but there is no need… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Economics is not a science and should not be there to advise policy.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“And entrepreneurship is a risky and heroic activity, necessary for growth or even the mere survival of the economy.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Wittgenstein's ruler: Unless you have confidence in the ruler's reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
In politics we face the choice between warmongering, nation-state loving, big-business agents on one hand; and risk-blind, top-down, epistemic arrogant big servants of large… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
You know, children philosophize more than adults - and they are critical of adults. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“One needs to go out and buy a lottery ticket in order to win. Does it mean that the work involved in the trip… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“If you are looking for your misplaced wallet in your living room, in a trial and error mode, you exercise rationality by not looking… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated—the busier they get, the more active they… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“loss of bone density and degradation of the health of the bones also causes aging, diabetes, and, for males, loss of fertility and sexual… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“It takes a huge investment in introspection to learn that the thirty or more hours spent “studying” the news last month neither had any… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
