Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto, #5)

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf? The original Aramaic version had a wild ass, instead of a wolf, showing off his freedom. But the wild ass ends up eaten by the lion. Freedom entails risks—real skin in the game. Freedom is never free. Whatever you do, just don’t be a dog claiming to be a wolf. In Harris’s sparrows, males develop secondary traits that correlate with their fighting ability. Darker color is associated with dominance. However, experimental darkening of lighter males does not raise their status, because their behavior is not altered. In fact these darker birds get killed—as the researcher Terry Burnham once told me: “birds know that you need to walk the walk.”