Shared by JohnH
HatTip to Dave Lull

Every aphorism in the book is about a procrustean bed of sorts, he says in the book’s preface. “We humans, facing limits of knowledge, and things we do not observe, the unseen and the unknown, resolve the tension by squeezing life and the world into crisp commoditized ideas, reductive categories, specific vocabularies, and prepackaged narratives, which, on the occasion, has explosive consequences.”

So much of what he says could be aimed directly at the insurance underwriter, the broker, the modeler, the investor, the corporate risk manager, and the chief executive.

In fact, try attributing each of these examples to any of the aforementioned people above:

To bankrupt a fool, give him information.

In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist and consultant, the opposite; most others fall somewhere in between.

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.

Randomness is indistinguishable from complicated, undetected, and undetectable order; but order itself is undistinguishable from artful randomness.