Quotes About Risk

It means that rational thinking has little, very little, to do with risk avoidance. Much of what rational thinking seems to do is rationalize one's actions by fitting some logic to them.

There is no problem if people have a conflict of interest if it is congruous with downside risk for themselves.

as they think that they will beat the odds.

Epistemic arrogance bears a double effect: we overestimate what we know, and underestimate uncertainty, by compressing the range of possible uncertain states (i.e., by reducing the space of the unknown).

the nonlinearity (that is, the asymmetry, with more upside than downside; asymmetry is a form of nonlinearity).

Our operation has a mortality rate of 1%. So far we have operated on ninety-nine patients with great success; you are our one hundreth, hence you have a 100% probability of dying on the table.

Recall that the most fragile is the predictive, what is built on the basis of predictability—in other words, those who underestimate Black Swans will eventually exit the population.

There seems to be no such thing as a foolish decision if it results in profits.

when its wording is slightly modified.

True equality is equality in probability. and Skin in the game prevents systems from rotting.

people's understanding of probability does not translate into their behavior).

Beware of precise plans by governments. As

In general, positive Black Swans take time to show their effect while negative ones happen very quickly—it is much easier and much faster to destroy than to build.

Options like dispersion of outcomes and don't care about the average too much.

fragility is in the dosage: falling from the 20th floor is not in the same risk category as falling from your chair.

Furthermore, people who make forecasts professionally are often more affected by such impediments than those who don't.

most successes are caused by very few "windows of opportunity," failing to grab one can be deadly for one's career.

One of the attractive aspects of my profession as a quantitative option trader is that

in the presence of nonlinearities, the longer the forecast the worse its accuracy.

Clearly risk taking is necessary for large success—but it is also necessary for failure.

2. No socialization of losses and privatization of gains.

Antifragile shows how people confuse risk of ruin with variations and fluctuations—a simplification that violates a deeper, more rigorous logic of things.

In fact for most people except those that are very ill, the risks outweigh the benefits. Except that the long-term medical risks are hidden; they will play out in the long run, whereas the legal risk is immediate. This is no different from the Bob Rubin risk-transfer trade, of delaying risks and making them look invisible.

growth in society may not come from raising the average the Asian way, but from increasing the number of people in the "tails," that small, very small number of risk takers crazy enough to have ideas of their own