作者：(美)纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布
出版社：中信出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
随机生存的智慧：黑天鹅语录（中信管理经典）试读：
前言
你最害怕违拗的人乃是你自己。
当你害怕由一个念头引出符合逻辑的结论时，这念头就开始变得有意思了。
制药公司更擅长发明出疾病来接受已有的药物治疗，而不是发明出药物来治疗已有的疾病。
要理解禁欲主义给予人的自由，只要想想看：失去全部财富的痛苦远比失去一半财富要轻。
要让傻瓜破产，给他信息。
学术跟知识的关系，就像卖淫跟爱情的关系一样：表面上看来似[1]乎很接近，但在旁观者看来，其实并不是同一回事。
科学需要你了解世界；商业需要你让别人误解世界。
我怀疑，之所以他们处死苏格拉底，是因为太过清晰的思考是一件非常不讨人喜欢、非常令人陌生、非常违背人性的事。
教育会让聪明人变得稍微更聪明一些，但却会让傻瓜变得危险很多。
彰显一个创意独特性的最好证据，不是过去没有跟它类似的创意，而是现在有很多跟它相左的创意。
现代社会给我们的双重惩罚是，既让我们衰老得更早，又让我们活得更长。
博学多才的人知道得多，表现出来的少；记者和咨询人士正好相反；绝大多数人都处于这两种情况中间。
你的脑子最聪明的时候，是你不告诉它该做什么的时候——人们偶尔会在洗澡时发现这一点。
如果你的愤怒随着时间逐渐消散，说明你对别人做了不公平的事；如果它随着时间逐渐增加，说明别人对你做了不公平的事。
我不知道，究竟是那些主张“慷慨带来回报”的人意识不到这话的自相矛盾之处，还是他们所谓的“慷慨”只不过是一种巧妙的投机[2]方式。
那些认为宗教是一种“信仰”的人既不了解宗教，也不了解信仰。
工作会摧毁你的灵魂，方法是在你“不工作”的时候偷偷侵入你的脑海；所以一定要慎重选择职业。
在自然状态下，我们永远不会重复同样的事情。在受到禁锢的状态下（办公室，健身房，上下班路上，体育运动），生活只不过是重复性的疲劳损伤而已，没有任何随机性可言。
把别人的缺乏常识当作借口，这本身就是缺乏常识的表现。
用狭隘的（亚里斯多德式的）逻辑约束自己，跟避免致命的逻辑矛盾，这两者并不是同一回事。
经济学弄不清楚的是，群体（或者说集体）行为远比个体行为难以预料。
不要用长寿、安全和舒适水平的提高来衡量社会的进步；动物园里的动物相比野生动物而言也是这样的。
要是你早晨起床时，就能预测这一天会是什么样子，那你就已经开始靠近死亡了——预测得越准确，你离死亡就越近。
冰与水之间并没有中间状态，但是生与死之间确实有中间状态：雇佣状态。
当你害怕的东西绝大多数都带有令人心痒的冒险性时，你所过的一定是所谓的精准生活。
拖延是灵魂对羁绊的抗争。
没人愿意被一眼看透，无论是被别人，还是被自己。注释[1]我需要澄清的是，这方面有时也有例外，就好像妓女有时也会爱上嫖客一样。[2]慷慨之举应该是不追求任何回报的，无论是在经济上、社会上还是感情上。这样的举动应该是义务性的（无条件地履行责任），不是功利性的（追求集体的——甚至是个人的——收获与回报）。“慷慨”的施予会让施予者感到内心温暖，甚至得到了救赎，这并没有问题；然而，这样的举动不应该跟纯粹发自责任感的义务性举动相混淆。PRELUDES
The person you are the most afraid to contradict is yourself.
An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.
Pharmaceutical companies are better at inventing diseases that match existing drugs, rather than inventing drugs to match existing diseases.
To understand the liberating effect of asceticism, consider that losing all your fortune is much less painful than losing only half of it.
To bankrupt a fool, give him information
Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing.
In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it.
I suspect that they put Socrates to death because there is something terribly unattractive, alienating, and nonhuman in thinking with too much clarity.
Education makes the wise slightly wiser, but it makes the fool vastly more dangerous.
The test of originality for an idea is not the absence of one single predecessor, but the presence of multiple but incompatible ones.
Modernity's double punishment is to make us both age prematurely and live longer.
An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant, the opposite.
Your brain is most intelligent when you don't instruct it on what to do—— something people who take showers discover on occasion.
If your anger decreases with time, you did injustice; if it increases, you suffered injustice.
I wonder if those who advocate generosity for its rewards notice the inconsistency, or if what they call generosity is an attractive investment strategy.
Those who think religion is about "belief" don't understand religion, and don't understand belief.
Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working; be selective about professions.
In nature we never repeat the same motion; in captivity (office, gym, commute, sports), life is just repetitive stress injury. No randomness.
Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense.
Compliance with the straitjacket of narrow (Aristotelian) logic and avoidance of fatal inconsistencies are not the same thing.
Economics cannot digest the idea that the collective (and the aggregate) are disproportionately less predictable than individuals.
Don't talk about "progress" in terms of longevity, safety, or comfort before comparing zoo animals to those in the wilderness.
If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead——the more precision, the more dead you are.
There is no intermediate state between ice and water but there is one between life and death: employment.
You have a calibrated life when most of what you fear has the titillating prospect of adventure.
Procrastination is the soul rebelling against entrapment.
Nobody wants to be perfectly transparent; not to others, certainly not to himself.逆向叙述
对撒谎者最好的报复，就是让他相信你真的信了他的谎言。
当我们打算做一件我们潜意识里知道注定要失败的事情时，就会征询别人的建议，这样就可以把失败怪罪到别人头上。
当你真心想说“不”的时候，就会更难说出口。
如果你说“不”是认真的，就用不着再说第二次。
对你名誉损害最大的是你为了维护它而说的话。
当一个人开始谈论衰老的时候，他就真的开始老了。
他们会羡慕你的成功、你的财富、你的聪明、你的相貌、你的地位——但是很少有人会羡慕你的智慧。
人们所谓的“谦逊”，其实通常都是掩饰得比较成功的傲慢。
如果你想让人们读某一本书，告诉他们它名不副实。
只有当他们开始对你展开人身攻击时，你才算是赢得了一场争论。
没有什么比“临时”的安排、赤字、休战和情感关系更加恒久，没有什么比“恒久”的这些东西更加临时。
让我们最痛苦的，不是跟没意思的人在一起，而是跟努力表现得有意思的没意思的人在一起。
恨是某一行代码出了错误的爱，这错误可以改正，但很难寻找。
假如我的某个死敌发现我恨的是另一个人，我不知道他是不是会感到嫉妒。
失败者的特点是会抱怨人类的缺陷、偏见、自相矛盾和缺乏理智，但又不利用这些东西追求自己的欢乐和利益。
你是否真的喜欢一本书，判断标准是你是否会重读它（以及重读了多少遍）；你是否真的喜欢一个人的陪伴，判断标准是你是否愿意再次遇见他——剩下的都是空话，或者那种现在被称为“自尊”的情绪。
我们会问“他为什么富有（或是贫穷）”，而不是“他为什么不更富有（或是更贫穷）”；我们会问“为什么危机如此深重”，而不是“为什么危机不更加深重”。
恨远比爱更不容易伪造。你听说过虚假的爱，但还没听说过虚假的恨。
男子气概的反义词不是怯懦，而是科技。
一般来说，所谓“好的倾听者”其实对他们倾听的内容漠不关心，只不过他们擅长掩盖这种漠不关心。
正是人们表现出来的自相矛盾之处让他们富有魅力。
你记得住自己发出去却没收到回复的邮件，却记不住自己收到了而没有回复的邮件。
人们会把恭维之词留给那些对他们的骄傲感没有威胁的人；至于那些威胁到他们骄傲感的人，他们会用“骄傲”来评价。
从古罗马的老加图开始，人们一直通过斥责下一代人的“浅薄”、赞扬上一辈人的“价值”来表现自己的成熟。
要忍住不给别人提出锻炼和保健方面的建议，简直跟自己坚持锻炼一样难。
表扬一个人没有缺点的时候，你也在指出他没有优点。
当她嚷嚷着无法原谅你做的事情的时候，她已经开始原谅你了。
只有当你很容易感到厌倦的时候，缺乏想象力才算是个问题。
那些把自己当做世界中心的人，我们称之为自恋者；那些把自己和另一个人当做世界中心的人，我们称做情人。
友谊从来都不是可以被宣告结束的，如果是这样，其中至少有一个人是愚人。
绝大多数人害怕失去视听刺激，因为当他们自己去思考和想象时，总是在重复同样的内容。
没有回报的恨远比没有回报的爱更能让人显得渺小。
对于有同情心的人来说，用新的悲哀来替换旧的悲哀，远比用快乐替换悲哀要容易。
年轻人的智慧跟老人的轻佻一样不讨人喜欢。
有些人只有在试图表现得严肃的时候才显得滑稽。
谈话时，要忍住不把秘密说出来是很难的，仿佛信息具有生存的欲望和繁殖的能力。COUNTER NARRATIVES
The best revenge on a liar is to convince him that you believe what he said.
When we want to do something while unconsciously certain to fail, we seek advice so we can blame someone else for the failure.
It is harder to say no when you really mean it than when you don't.
Never say no twice if you mean it.
Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it.
The only objective definition of aging is when a person starts to talk about aging.
They will envy you for your success, for your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status ——but rarely for your wisdom.
Most of what they call humility is successfully disguised arrogance.
If you want people to read a book, tell them it is overrated.
You never win an argument until they attack your person.
Nothing is more permanent than "temporary" arrangements, deficits, truces, and relationships; and nothing is more temporary than "permanent" ones.
The most painful moments are not those we spend with uninteresting people; rather, they are those spent with uninteresting people trying hard to be interesting.
Hatred is love with a typo somewhere in the computer code, correctable but very hard to find.
I wonder whether a bitter enemy would be jealous if he discovered that I hated someone else.
The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind's flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality——without exploiting them for fun and profit.
The test of whether you really liked a book is if you reread it (and how many times); the test of whether you really liked someone's company is if you are ready to meet him again and again——the rest is spin, or that variety of sentiment now called self-esteem.
We ask "why is he rich (or poor)?" not "why isn't he richer (or poorer)?";"why is the crisis so deep?" not "why isn't it deeper?".
Hatred is much harder to fake than love. You hear of fake love; never of fake hate.
The opposite of manliness isn't cowardice; it's technology
Usually, what we call "good listener" is someone with skillfully polished indifference.
It is the appearance of inconsistency, and not its absence, that makes people attractive.
You remember emails you sent that were not answered better than emails that you did not answer.
People reserve standard compliments for those who do not threaten their pride; the others they often praise by calling "arrogant".
Since Cato the Elder, a certain type of maturity has shown up when one starts blaming the new generation for "shallowness" and praising the previous one for its "values".
It is as difficult to avoid bugging others with advice on how to exercise and other health matters as it is to stick to an exercise schedule.
By praising someone for his lack of defects you are also implying his lack of virtues.
When she shouts that what you did was unforgivable, she has already started to forgive you.
Being unimaginative is only a problem when you are easily bored.
We call narcissistic those individuals who behave as if they were the central residents of the world; those who do exactly the same in a set of two we call lovers.
Friendship that ends was never one; there was at least one sucker in it.
Most people fear being without audiovisual stimulation because they are too repetitive when they think and imagine things on their own.
Unrequited hate is vastly more diminishing for the self than unrequited love. You can't react by reciprocating.
For the compassionate, sorrow is more easily displaced by another sorrow, than by joy.
Wisdom in the young is as unattractive as frivolity in the elderly.
Some people are only funny when they try to be serious.
It is difficult to stop the impulse to reveal secrets in conversation, as if information had the desire to live and the power to multiply.本体论的东西
把观察不到的东西当成不存在，这是近来开始流行的一种疾病。
让科学解释生活和生命，就像让语法专家解释诗歌一样。
只有当你可以自由地做任何事情，不需要明显的目的、理由和别人的要求时，你才算是真正存在于这世上。MATTERS ONTOLOGICAL
It is a very recent disease to mistake the unobserved for the nonexistent.
Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
You exist if and only if you are free to do things without a visible objective, with no justification and, above all, outside the dictatorship of someone else's narrative.神圣与凡俗
你没法用凡俗的语言来解释神圣的东西，但你可以用神圣的语言来讨论凡俗的东西。
无神论（唯物主义）意味着把死去的当成从未出生过。我不会这样想。通过接受神圣这一概念，你可以重新发明宗教。
如果你没法直接（不加分析地）辨认出神圣与凡俗之间的区别，那你永远不会知道宗教意味着什么。你也永远不会理解我们通常所谓的艺术。你没法理解任何东西。
过去，人们在工作日穿普通的衣服，到星期天祷告的时候换上正装，今天则正好相反。
为了彰显神圣跟凡俗之间的区别，每当跟咨询师、经济学家、哈佛商学院教授、记者之类的人发生任何接触（甚至包括邮件联系）之后，我都会仪式性地沐浴；这会让我感到自己得到了净化，清除了凡俗的玷染——直到下一次接触到这些人。
还没有被凡俗玷染的传媒就只剩下书籍了，你看到的其他传媒都[1]试图通过广告来操控你。
你可以用真话来替代谎言，但是神话只能用故事来替代。[2]
神圣的东西都是不求回报的，凡俗的东西都是求回报的。
历史上各种悲剧的源泉，无外乎混淆别人的“无条件”跟“有条件”。
饭店用食物吸引你，目的是卖给你酒；宗教用信仰吸引你，目的是卖给你规矩。人们可以理解神这个概念，但是不能理解暗藏的规矩、禁令和启示。
启示之一：绝食比限制食量更容易。你没法通过每天只吃一点点火腿，让自己“只是一点点”遵守宗教的饮食规矩。
要彻底戒掉报纸，只需要连续一年每天阅读上个星期的报纸。注释[1]长时间接触传媒的经历让我发现，没有哪种传媒不是在（笨拙地）试图卖给你什么东西。让我信任的就只有书籍了。拥有一本书并不会彰显出人性的弱点，不会迎合我们的表现欲，让我们显得高人一等；书籍之外的商业运作才会腐蚀我们。[2]例如，许多被誉为“无法贿赂”的人，只不过是贿赂起来太过昂贵而已。THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE
You cannot express the holy in terms made for the profane, but you can discuss the profane in terms made for the holy.
Atheism (materialism) means treating the dead as if they were unborn. I won't. By accepting the sacred, you reinvent religion.
If you can't spontaneously detect (without analyzing) the difference between sacred and profane, you'll never know what religion means. You will also never figure out what we commonly call art. You will never understand anything.
People used to wear ordinary clothes weekdays and formal attire on Sunday. Today it is the exact reverse.
To mark a separation between holy and profane, I take a ritual bath after any contact, or correspondence (even emails) , with consultants, economists, Harvard Business School professors, journalists, and those in similarly depraved pursuits; I then feel and act purified from the profane until the next episode.
The book is the only medium left that hasn't been corrupted by the profane: everything else on your eyelids manipulates you with an ad.
You can replace lies with truth; but myth is only displaced with a narrative.
The sacred is all about unconditionals; the profane is all about conditionals.
The source of the tragic in history is in mistaking someone else's unconditional for conditional——and the reverse.
Restaurants get you in with food to sell you liquor; religions get you in with belief to sell you rules (e.g., avoid debt). People can understand the notion of God, not unexplained rules, interdicts, and categorical heuristics.
One categorical: it is easier to fast than diet. You cannot be "slightly" kosher or halal by only eating a small portion of ham.
To be completely cured of newspapers, spend a year reading the previous week's newspapers.机遇、成功、幸福与坚忍
成功就是在中年时成为你在少年时梦想成为的那个人，别的都是失控导致的结果。
成功的反义词不是失败，而是把成功人士的名字时时挂在嘴边炫耀。
现代人需要弄清楚，“富有”和“变得富有”在数学层面、个人层面、社会层面和伦理层面上不是一回事。
要获得彻底的自由，你不仅需要避免成为奴隶，还需要避免成为奴隶主。
命运惩罚贪婪者的方式是让他贫穷，惩罚特别贪婪者的方式是让他富有。
绝大多数人自杀是因为羞耻，或者是因为经济与社会地位的丧失，不是因为被确诊患了绝症。“财富”是一个没有意义的词，因为它没法准确衡量；不如换用“缺乏财富”这个词，意思是在任一时刻，你所拥有的和你想要拥有的之间的差距。
年长的人最美丽的时候，是他们拥有了年轻人所缺乏的东西的时候：雍容，博学，智慧，经验，以及波澜不惊的平静。
我去参加一场幸福研讨会，结果发现与会者看上去都很不幸福。
傻瓜们所谓的“浪费时间”往往是最好的投资。
衰老一开始是用记忆替换梦想，到最后是用记忆替换别的记忆。
你总想避免既招人讨厌，又不招人羡慕或是妒忌。
不要读最近100年写的书，不要吃最近1 000年培植的水果，不要喝最近4 000年发明的饮料（只喝水跟红酒就够了），不要跟40岁以上的普通人说话。普通人从30岁就开始衰老死亡了。
有些职业在外人看来很有意思，其实很无聊。他们说，就连海盗都是这样。
卡尔•马克思发现，要更好地控制一个奴隶，你可以说服他相信他其实是个雇员。
在过去，天主教国家同样实行一夫一妻制，但是人们用不着考虑离婚——那时人们的寿命比今天短，婚姻的寿命比今天长。
要想一下子变得富有，可以跟穷人打交道；要想一下子变得贫穷，可以跟富人打交道。
等到你可以长时间什么都不做，什么都不学习，什么都不改进，而又完全没有负罪感时，你就算是变得文明了。
如果有人跟你说“我很忙”，那他要么是在宣称自己的无能（以及对自己生活的缺乏控制），要么是在试图摆脱你。
罗马时代的奴隶跟今天的雇员之间唯一的不同，就是奴隶用不着[1]奉承主人。
只有当拒绝收下一笔钱比收下这笔钱更让你感觉良好时，你才算是富有。
对于绝大多数人，成功就是从憎恨别人的阵营转换到被憎恨的阵营。
要弄清楚你是否真的喜欢自己的家，只要看看你回家时是否跟离家时同样开心。
爱和幸福之间的区别在于，谈论爱的人通常正处于爱河之中，谈论幸福的人通常并不幸福。
现代化就是创造出没有英雄主义的年轻人，没有智慧的老人，以及没有光彩的生活。
对于渴望别人关注的人来说，网络是个不健康的地方。
不知道有没有人测量过，在聚会上，一个稍微有点成功的、在哈佛读过书的陌生人要花多久才能让别人知道这一点。
人们总喜欢关注“榜样”，其实更应该关注的是“反榜样”——你长大后不想成为什么样的人。
你应该每次都道歉，除了在真正犯错误的时候。
对效率的追求，是阻止我们过上充满诗意的、高贵的、优雅的、富有活力的、英雄主义的生活的主要原因。
有些人，例如绝大多数银行家，是如此不适应成功，以至于他们看上去就像是穿着巨人衣服的矮子。
不要太过大声地抱怨别人对你的不公，你或许会提醒那些缺乏想象力的敌人该怎么做。
绝大多数人越是试图摆脱执念，就越会深陷其中。
要改变别人的意见，就跟改变他们的品位一样难。
我曾在被称为“丑陋”的地方度过美好时光，也曾在被称为“风景秀丽”的地方度过最无聊的时光。
健美当然是力量的表现，但除去自然刺激因素，追求健美的动力往往是内心虚弱的表现。
魅力就是侮辱别人又不让他们生气的能力。
那些不认为雇佣就是系统化的奴役的人，要么是瞎子，要么正被雇佣。
他们生下来被放在盒子里，回到家住在盒子里，学习时勾选一个个的盒子，乘着盒子去上班，工作时坐在盒子里，开着盒子去超市买装在盒子里的食物，乘着盒子去健身房，死后被放在盒子里。这些都是符合欧几里得定义的、四四方方的、表面平滑的盒子。
现代化的另一个定义：谈话越来越能通过同一时刻发生在地球上其他地方的其他谈话的片断被完整地重建出来。
20世纪宣告了社会乌托邦的破产，21世纪将会宣告科技乌托邦的破产。
建设社会、政治和医疗乌托邦的努力往往以悲剧收场，许多科技和医学发明都来源于战争。
网络让人们“彼此相连”，结果在信息和伪社会的层面上营造出了一种怪异的滥交氛围，这让人每次下线的时候都感觉自己重又变得干净了。
在绝大多数争论中，人们似乎都在试图说服对方，但他们其实最多只能说服自己。注释[1]历史上，许多人都曾反复验证和揭示过这一点——最近一次的典型情况是蒙田的例子。CHANCE, SUCCESS, HAPPINESS, AND STOICISM
Success is becoming in middle adulthood what you dreamed to be in late childhood. The rest comes from loss of control.
The opposite of success isn't failure, it is namedropping.
Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing.
You don't become completely free by just avoiding to be a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.
Fortune punishes the greedy by making him poor and the very greedy by making him rich.
Quite revealing of human preferences that more suicides come from shame or loss of financial and social status than medical diagnoses.
"Wealthy" is meaningless and has no robust absolute measure; use intead the subtractive measure "unwealth", that is, the difference, at any point in time, between what you have and what you would like to have.
Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.
I went to a happiness conference; researchers looked very unhappy.
What fools call "wasting time" is most often the best investment.
Decline starts with the replacement of dreams with memories and ends with the replacement of memories with other memories.
You want to avoid being disliked without being envied or admired.
Read nothing from the past 100 years; eat no fruits from the past 1,000 years; drink nothing from the past 4,000 years (just wine and water); but talk to no ordinary man over 40. A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of 30.
Some pursuits are much duller from the inside. Even piracy, they say.
Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.
Catholic countries had more serial monogamy than today, but without the need for divorce——life expectancy was short; marriage duration was much, much shorter.
The fastest way to become rich is to socialize with the poor; the fastest way to become poor is to socialize with the rich.
You will be civilized on the day when you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.
Someone who says "I am busy" is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.
The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today's employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss.
You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.
For most, success is the harmful passage from the camp of the hating to the camp of the hated.
To see if you like where you are, without the chains of dependence, check if you are as happy returning as you were leaving.
The difference between love and happiness is that those who talk about love tend to be in love, but those who talk about happiness tend to be not happy.
Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.
The Web is an unhealthy place for someone hungry for attention.
I wonder if anyone ever measured the time it takes, at a party, before a mildly successful stranger who went to Harvard makes others aware of it.
People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels people you don't want to resemble when you grow up.
It is a good practice to always apologize, except when you have done something wrong.
Preoccupation with efficacy is the main obstacle to a poetic, noble, elegant, robust, and heroic life.
Some, like most bankers, are so unfit for success, that they look like dwarves dressed in giants' clothes.
Don't complain too loud about wrongs done you, you may give ideas to your less imaginative enemies.
Most feed their obsessions by trying to get rid of them.
It is as difficult to change someone's opinions as it is to change his tastes.
I have the fondest memories of time spent in places called ugly, themost boring ones of places called scenic.
Fitness is certainly the sign of strength, but outside of natural stimuli, the drive to acquire fitness can signal some deep incurable weakness.
Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them.
Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
They are born then put in a box, they go home to live in a box, they study by ticking boxes, they go to what is called "work" in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box, they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they go to the gym in a box to sit in a box; they talk about thinking "outside the box"; and when they die they are put in a box. All boxes, Euclidian, geometrically smooth boxes.
Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.
The 20th century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia. The 21st will be that of the technological one.
Efforts at building social, political, and medical utopias have caused nightmares; many cures and techniques came from martial efforts.
The Web's "connectedness" creates a peculiar form of informational and pseudosocial promiscuity, which makes one feel clean after Web rationing.
In most debates, people seem to be trying to convince one another; but all they can hope for is new arguments to convince themselves.诱人和不那么诱人的愚人问题
那些在饭馆里争吵的夫妇，生活中最令人沮丧的一面是，他们几乎永远意识不到自己争吵的真正主题是什么。
给别人提出最多建议的，正是那些最不成功的人，特别是在写作和财务方面。
流言只有被否认的时候才有价值。
长期来看，你更容易愚弄自己而不是别人。
世上有两类人：追求胜利的人和追求在争论中得胜的人。他们从来不是同一拨人。
人们道歉经常是为了将来再作同样的道歉。
数学之于知识，好比义肢之于真正的肢体；有些人截肢就是为了能装上义肢。
现代生活会用愚人的方式解释各种行为：现在我们“散步锻炼”，而不是毫无理由地“散步”。
社会媒体严重反社会，健康食品非常不健康，知识工作者极度缺乏知识，社会科学根本就不是科学。
对于许多人，我们不应该在他们死去时寻找“死亡原因”，而是在他们活着时寻找“活着的原因”。
那些利用别人的人，在被人利用时最为恼火。
如果有人给你好几个理由说明他为什么想得到这份工作，不要雇用他。
二流思维方式的失败之处是：他告诉你一个秘密，想让你保守这个秘密，而他的行为刚好证明了他自己都没法保守它。
社交网站会注明人们“喜欢”哪些东西，然而如果注明他们讨厌哪些东西的话，信息量就会更加丰富。
人们太过重视因果逻辑，所以如果你在谈话中不时插入一句“为什么”，就可以让最沉默寡言的人变得多嘴多舌。
我得经常提醒自己，真正的独立思考者看上去可能像个会计。CHARMING AND LESS CHARMING SUCKER PROBLEMS
The most depressing aspect of the lives of the couples you watch surreptitiously arguing in restaurants is that they are almost always unaware of the true subject of argument.
It seems that it is the most unsuccessful people who give the most advice, particularly for writing and financial matters.
Rumors are only valuable when they are denied.
Over the long term, you are more likely to fool yourself than others.
There are two types of people: those who try to win and those who try to win arguments. They are never the same.
People usually apologize so they can do it again.
Mathematics is to knowledge what an artificial hand is to the real one; some amputate to replace.
Modernity inflicts a sucker narrative on activities; now we "walk for exercise" , not "walk" with no justification; for hidden reasons.
Social media are severely antisocial, health foods are empirically unhealthy, knowledge workers are very ignorant, and social sciences aren't scientific at all.
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