Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True philosophers often retain their purity of thought by engaging in other professions.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb suggests that the most insightful philosophers are those who do not confine themselves to academic institutions, as being employed outside academia helps to keep their philosophical ideas authentic and free from the influence of career ambitions. This perspective emphasizes the importance of practical experience in developing a meaningful philosophy, as it remains anchored in real-world applications rather than abstract theories shaped by the pursuit of professional success.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Referencing this quote while discussing the value of practical experience in educational curriculums.
More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
All quotes βFragility 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.
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Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations.
Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.
Far off, men swell, bully, and threaten; bring them hand to hand, and they are feeble folk.