Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am very much interested to know what Mr. Taleb has to say about that! Because I don’t think he is at all shallow………..
The other day, I was watching ‘Luck‘, an utterly conventional Bollywood movie – it was riddled with the dialogues like, ‘Luck favors the person who wants to win’, ‘Luck favors the person who has a strong faith in himself’, ‘Luck favors the one who is strong-willed’ – as if a human being has the power of telekinesis over randomness and luck! Luck, as far as I am concerned, makes a reluctant erratic home delivery.
How many people out there engage in self-delusion that it is mostly their skill that has got them success (this won’t apply if you were a dentist!), they were, and they are simply lucky fools. They would feel that luck has nothing to do with it, and due to their hind side bias, would fit explanations snugly (mostly self eulogy) for their current success. Of course one blames one’s failures on Randomness (or God!)……..
A review must add something….!!! I don’t have much to add except for the fact that I would be breaking two very intrinsic rules of Mr. Taleb……..The first one, I had already broken above, by planting a quote randomly from the internet without reading any of the works of Ralph Emerson. The other is that, I would try to simplify this somewhat complex text for MY BENEFIT ONLY! I am no M.B.A., though I am preparing for it..! Mr. Taleb is firmly against vapid sound bites………..But I am a stupid 20-something who feels that he needs to express what he has understood in clear, unambiguous pointers so that he could remember it a bit longer even if he has no plans in near future to enter the markets…..But of course, this isn’t a book solely dedicated to market. This book is about Chance and how it affects our life…….So here we go –
1) Try, not to be a fool of randomness (The fact that this is a simple unassuming statement is precisely because it is the most difficult statement to follow. No one has yet completely succeeded!).
2) Try, not to be jealous of a rich fool of randomness. Because time and a jolting black swan event would tame him. (Patience dear, you will soon rise and shine…)
3) In the competition called life, if a person is having a lucky streak, he is successful precisely because he has a lucky streak. Don’t misunderstand ‘Survival of the Fittest’.
4) If you have a theory waiting to be proven true – it is mostly safe to believe the opposite.
5) How Nicholas Taleb earns money? He multiplies probability with outcome, and hence reaps rich dividends off the Black Swan events…..!!!! He riseth in thy demise!!
6) You can not consciously control your mind….Use cheap tricks…!
7) Stop listening to babblers..!
8) In the end though, a wee bit randomness in your regular life might do you good!!!
Go ahead, buy the book. Read it. Have fun!
Alienman 