Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

As Gibbon wrote: The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

Consider that an evil person, say an economics professor, decides to poison the collective by putting some product into soda cans. He has two options. The first is cyanide, which obeys a minority rule: a drop of poison (higher than a small threshold) makes the entire liquid poisonous. The second is a “majority-style” poison; it requires more than h

What matters isn’t what a person has or doesn’t have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing.

SYSTEMS LEARN BY REMOVING

When the beard (or hair) is black, heed the reasoning, but ignore the conclusion. When the beard is gray, consider both reasoning and conclusion. When the beard is white, skip the reasoning, but mind the conclusion.

So I’ve discovered, with experience, that when you buy a thick book with tons of graphs and tables used to prove a point, you should be suspicious. It means something didn’t distill right! But for the general public and those untrained in statistics, such tables appear convincing—another way to substitute the true with the complicated.

and thinking introduces is the illusion that each one of us is a single unit.

First, it tells you to mind your own business and not decide what is “good” for others.