Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

HOW TO PUT SKIN IN THE GAME OF SUICIDE BOMBERS Can someone punish a family for the crimes of an individual? The scriptures are self-contradictory—you can get both answers from the Old Testament. Exodus and Numbers show God as “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third or fourth generation.” Deuteronomy makes a separation: “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” Even today the question isn’t fully settled, nor is the answer clear-cut. You are not responsible for the debts of your parents, but German taxpayers are still responsible for war reparations for crimes committed by their grandparents and great-grandparents. And even in ancient times, when debt was a burden that crossed generations, the answer wasn’t clear-cut: there was a balancing mechanism of periodic (literal) cleaning of the slate, with jubilee debt forgiveness. However, the answer is clear in the case of terrorism. The rule should be: You kill my family with supposed impunity; I will make yours pay some indirect price for it. Indirect responsibility isn’t part of the standard crime-and-punishment methodology of a civilized society, but confronting terrorists (who threaten innocents) isn’t standard either. For we have rarely in history faced a situation in which the perpetrator of a crime has a completely asymmetric payoff and upside from death itself.fn3