Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
If you are an Arabic-speaking, Greek-Orthodox going to a French school it makes you deeply sceptical if you have to listen to three different accounts of the Crusades - one from the Muslim side, one from the Greek side and one from the Catholic side.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the impact of diverse perspectives on one's understanding of history.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's quote reflects the complexities of cultural identity and the multiplicity of narratives that shape our understanding of historical events. When exposed to different viewpoints, individuals may become more skeptical and critical of singular narratives, recognizing that history is often told from various angles that can influence perception and interpretation.
In practice
During a lecture on historical conflicts, this quote can illustrate the importance of understanding different narratives.
Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Fragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.
Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.
A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.
The aim of torture is to destroy a person as a human being, to destroy their identity and soul. It is more evil than murder.
How long had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right? In a fair world they would be one and the same.
Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.
Justice is the most important thing. In a plural society like Malaysia, you cannot have two laws - one law for the Muslim, one law for the non-Muslim.
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