Quotes About Impact

Rank beliefs not by their plausibility but by how much harm they might cause

Black Swans and tail events run the socioeconomic world

Black Swan has three attributes: unpredictability, consequences, retrospective explainability.

Know how to rank your beliefs not according to their plausibility but by the harm they may cause.

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. (During

Aut tace aut loquere meliora silencio (only when the words outperform silence). These

Writers are remembered for their best work, politicians for their worst mistakes, and businessmen are almost never remembered.

First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact (unlike the bird). Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.

people overreact to low-probability outcomes when you discuss the event with them, when you make them aware of it. If

we are effectively not skilled at intuitively gauging the impact of the improbable, such

Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence?

interventionism depletes mental and economic resources; it is rarely available when it is needed the most.

I've looked in history for heroes who became heroes for what they did not do, but it is hard to observe nonaction; I could not easily find any.

So I end this section with a thought. It is quite perplexing that those from whom we have benefited the most aren't those who have tried to help us (say with "advice") but rather those who have actively tried—but eventually failed—to harm us.

For the fragile, the cumulative effect of small shocks is smaller than the single effect of an equivalent single large shock.

they unarguably saved more lives than were lost.

My idea is that not only are some scientific results useless in real life, because they underestimate the impact of the highly improbable (or lead us to ignore it), but that many of them may be actually creating Black Swans. These

some classes of people use hidden options and harm the collective without anyone realizing.

many problems in society come from the interventions of people who sell complicated solutions because that's what their position and training invite them

many problems in society come from the interventions of people who sell complicated solutions because that's what their position and training invite them to do.

if something is fragile, its risk of breaking makes anything you do to improve it or make it "efficient" inconsequential unless you first reduce that risk of breaking.

La burocracia es una estructura mediante la cual una persona es convenientemente separada de las consecuencias de sus actos.

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.

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