Incerto, m. 5 Buch

Chapter 1

Croesus, King of Lydia, was considered the richest man of his time. To this day Romance languages use the expression rich as Croesus to describe a person of excessive wealth. He was said to be visited by Solon, the Greek legislator known for his dignity, reserve, upright morals, humility, frugality, wisdom, intelligence, and courage. Solon did not display the smallest surprise at the wealth and splendor surrounding his host, nor the tiniest admiration for their owner. Croesus was so irked by the manifest lack of impression on the part of this illustrious visitor that he attempted to extract from him some acknowledgment. He asked him if he had known a happier man than him. Solon cited the life of a man who led a noble existence and died while in battle. Prodded for more, he gave similar examples of heroic but terminated lives, until Croesus, irate, asked him point-blank if he was not to be considered the happiest man of all. Solon answered: The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man s happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy.

The modern equivalent has been no less eloquently voiced by the baseball coach Yogi Berra, who seems to have translated Solon s outburst from the pure Attic Greek into no less pure Brooklyn English with it ain t over until it s over, or, in a less dignified manner, with it ain t over until the fat lady sings. In addition, aside from his use of the vernacular, the Yogi Berra quote presents an advantage of being true, while the meeting between Croesus and Solon was one of those historical facts that benefited from the imagination of the chroniclers, as it was chronologically impossible for the two men to have been in the same

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent twenty-one years as a risk taker before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical, and (mostly) practical problems with probability. Although he spends most of his time as a flâneur, meditating in cafés across the planet, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University s Tandon School of Engineering. His books, part of a multivolume collection called Incerto, have been published in forty-one languages. Taleb has authored more than fifty scholarly papers as backup to Incerto, ranging from international affairs and risk management to statistical physics. Having been described as a rare mix of courage and erudition, he is widely recognized as the foremost thinker on probability and uncertainty. Taleb lives mostly in New York.

Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb
 
The problem with Taleb is not that he s an asshole. He is an asshole. The problem with Taleb is that he is right. Dan from Prague, Czech Republic (Twitter)
 
The most prophetic voice of all . . . [Taleb is] a genuinely significant philosopher . . . someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone. John Gray, GQ
 
Taleb grabs on to core problems that others ignore, or don t see, and shakes them like an attack dog on a leg. Greg from New York (Twitter)
 
For my wife and me, Antifragile is an annual reread. Colle from Richmond, Virginia (Twitter)
 
I read Antifragile four times. First, to get the wisdom to survive. Second, as a memorial statement for Fat Tony. Third, as Das Kapital with correct mathematics. Fourth, as ethics to learn a good way to die. Tamitake from Tokyo, Japan (Twitter)
 
November . . . time for my annual reread of Antifragile. Johann from Vienna, Austria (Twitter)
 
[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne. The Wall Street Journal