Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
304
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
304Hardcover
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Overview
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.
As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:
• For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
• Ethical rules aren’t universal. You’re part of a group larger than you, but it’s still smaller than humanity in general.
• Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
• You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. “Educated philistines” have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.
• Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
• True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.
The phrase “skin in the game” is one we have often heard but rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it’s also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, “The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster,” and “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780425284629 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 02/27/2018 |
| Series: | Incerto Series |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 255,320 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
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Chapter 1
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Excerpted from "Skin in the Game"
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Copyright © 2018 Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Book 1 Introduction 1
The Less Obvious Aspects of Skin in the Game 4
Prologue, Part 1: Antaeus Whacked 7
Libya After Antaeus 8
Ludis de Alieno Corio 10
Warlords Are Still Around 11
The Bob Rubin Trade 12
Systems Learn by Removing 13
Prologue, Part 2: A Brief Tour of Symmetry 16
I From Hammurabi to Kant 16
Hammurabi in Paris 16
Silver Beats Gold 19
Fuhgedaboud Universalism 20
II From Kant to Fat Tony 22
Crook, Foot, or Both 22
Causal Opacity and Preferences Revealed 24
Skin in the Game, but Not All the Time 27
III Modernism 27
How to Beam Light on a Speaker 28
Simplicity 29
I Am Dumb Without Skin in the Game 30
Regulations vs. Legal Systems 31
IV Soul in the Game 33
Artisans 34
A Caveat with Entrepreneurs 36
Arrogant Will Do 36
Citizenship de Plaisance 37
Heroes Were Not Library Rats 38
Soul in the Game and Some (Not Too Much) Protectionism 39
Skin in the Ruling 40
Prologue, Part 3: The Ribs of the Incerto 41
The Road 42
An Enhanced Detector 43
The Book Reviewers 43
Organization of the Book 45
Appendix: Asymmetries in Life and Things 47
Book 2 A First Look at Agency 49
Chapter 1 Why Each One Should Eat His Own Turtles: Equality in Uncertainty 51
A Customer Is Born Every Day 51
The Price of Corn in Rhodes 54
Equality in Uncertainty 55
Rav Safra and the Swiss 57
Members and Non-Members 58
Non Mihi non Tibi, sed Nobis (Neither Mine nor Yours, but Ours) 60
Are You on the Diagonal? 61
All (Literally) in the Same Boat 62
Talking One's Book 63
A Short Visit to the Doctor's Office 64
Next 66
Book 3 That Greatest Asymmetry 67
Chapter 2 The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dominance of the Stubborn Minority 69
Criminals with Peanut Allergies 71
Renormalization Group 75
The Veto 76
Lingua Franca 77
Genes vs. Languages 79
The One-Way Street of Religions 80
Decentralize, Again 82
Imposing Virtue on Others 83
Stability of the Minority Rule, a Probabilistic Argument 84
Popper-Goedel's Paradox 85
Irreverence of Markets and Science 86
Unus sed Leo: Only One but a Lion 87
Summary and Next 88
Appendix to Book 3: A Few More Counterintuitive Things About the Collective 89
Zero-Intelligence Markets 91
Book 4 Wolves among Dogs 93
Chapter 3 How to Legally Own Another Person 95
To Own a Pilot 96
From the Company Man to the Companies Person 98
Coase's Theory of the Firm 100
Complexity 101
A Curious Form of Slave Ownership 101
Freedom is Never Free 102
Wolves Among the Dogs 103
Loss Aversion 105
Waiting for Constantinople 106
Do Not Rock Bureaucristan 107
Next 108
Chapter 4 The Skin of Others in Your Game 109
A Mortgage and Two Cats 109
Finding Hidden Vulnerabilities 111
How to Put Skin in the Game of Suicide Bombers 113
Next 115
Book 5 Being Alive Means Taking Certain Risks 117
Chapter 5 Life in the Simulation Machine 119
Jesus Was a Risk Taker 120
Pascal's Wager 121
The Matrix 121
The Donald 122
Next 122
Chapter 6 The Intellectual Yet Idiot 123
Where to Find a Coconut 123
Science and Scientism 124
Intellectual Yet Philistine 125
Never Gotten Drunk with Russians 126
To Conclude 127
Postscript 127
Chapter 7 Inequality and Skin in the Game 128
Inequality vs. Inequality 128
The Static and the Dynamic 130
Pikketism and the Revolt of the Mandarin Class 133
Cobbler Envies Cobbler 135
Inequality, Wealth, and Vertical Socialization 136
Empathy and Homophily 137
Data, Shmata 137
Ethics of Civil Service 138
Next 140
Chapter 8 An Expert Called Lindy 141
Who Is the "Real" Expert? 142
The Lindy of Lindy 143
Do We Need a Judge? 144
Tea with the Queen 145
Institutions 146
Against One's Interest 147
Soul in the Game, Again 148
Science is Lindy-Prone 148
Empirical or Theoretic? 149
The Grandmother vs. the Researchers 150
A Brief Tour of Your Grandparents' Wisdom 151
Book 6 Deeper Into Agency 153
Chapter 9 Surgeons Should Not Look like Surgeons 155
Looking the Part 155
The Green Lumber Fallacy 157
Best-Dressed Business Plan 158
A Bishop for Halloween 159
The Gordian Knot 160
Overintellectualization of Life 161
Another Business of Intervention 162
Gold and Rice 162
The Compensation 164
Education as Luxury Good 164
A BS Detection Heuristic 165
Real Gyms Don't Look Like Gyms 165
Next 166
Chapter 10 Only the Rich Are Poisoned: The Preferences of Others 167
Venenum in Aura Bibitur 168
Large Funeral Homes 169
Conversation 170
Nonlinearity of Progress 170
Next 171
Chapter 11 Facta non Verba (Deeds Before Words) 172
An Offer Very Hard to Refuse 172
The Assassins 174
Assassination as Marketing 175
Assassination as Democracy 176
The Camera for Skin in the Game 176
Chapter 12 The Facts Are True, the News Is Fake 178
How to Disagree with Yourself 178
Information Doesn't Like to Be Owned 179
The Ethics of Disagreement 181
Next 182
Chapter 13 The Merchandising of Virtue 183
The Public and the Private 184
The Virtue Merchants 185
To Be or to Seem? 186
Simony 187
Virtue Is About Others and the Collective 188
Unpopular Virtue 188
Take Risk 189
Chapter 14 Peace, Neither Ink nor Blood 190
Mars vs. Saturn 191
Where Are the Lions? 192
History Seen from the Emergency Room 193
Next 196
Book 7 Religion, Belief, and Skin in the Game 197
Chapter 15 They Don't Know What They Are Talking About When They Talk About Religion 199
Belief vs. Belief 201
Libertarianism and Church-Free Religions 202
Next 203
Chapter 16 No Worship Without Skin in the Game 204
The Gods Do Not Like Cheap Signaling 204
The Evidence 207
Chapter 17 Is the Pope Atheist? 208
Religious in Words 210
Next 210
Book 8 Risk and Rationality 211
Chapter 18 How to Be Rational About Rationality 213
Ocular Deception 214
Ergodicity First 214
From Simon to Gigerenzer 216
Revelation of Preferences 216
What Is Religion About? 217
"Tawk" and Cheap "Tawk" 219
What Does Lindy Say? 219
The Nondecorative in the Decorative 220
Chapter 19 The Logic of Risk Taking 222
Ergodicity 225
Repetition of Exposures 226
Who Is "You"? 228
Courage and Precaution Aren't Opposites 230
Rationality, Again 230
Love Some Risks 231
Naive Empiricism 231
Summary 233
Epilogue: What Lindy Told Me 235
Acknowledgments 237
Glossary 239
Technical Appendix 243
Notes 255
Bibliography 259
Index 265