Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

THE LINDY OF LINDY The idea of the Lindy effect is itself Lindy-proof. The pre-Socratic thinker Periander of Corinth wrote, more than twenty-five hundred years ago: Use laws that are old but food that is fresh. Likewise, Alfonso X of Spain, nicknamed El Sabio, “the wise,” had as a maxim: Burn old logs. Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends. The insightful and luckily nonacademic historian Tom Holland once commented: “The thing I most admire about the Romans was the utter contempt they were capable of showing the cult of youth.” He also wrote: “The Romans judged their political system by asking not whether it made sense but whether it worked,” which is why, while dedicating this book, I called Ron Paul a Roman among Greeks.