Igor > Igor's Quotes

“Skilled readers are probably worse at identifying faces, since jury-rigging the relevant brain areas impinges on the fusiform gyrus, an area that specializes in face recognition. In fact, the well-established neurological asymmetry in face processing, favoring the right side of the brain, may be due to the effects of learning to read, which drives face processing out of the left side and shifts what it can to the right side.5 I was personally glad to hear this, as I now have an excuse for why I forget faces so often—I’ve recycled some of my facial recognition neuronal firmware to support my reading addiction.”
― Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

“Politicians in their speeches, goals, and promises aim at the timid concepts of “resilience,” “solidity,” not antifragility, and in the process are stifling the mechanisms of growth and evolution. We didn’t get where we are thanks to the sissy notion of resilience. And, what’s worse, we didn’t get where we are today thanks to policy makers—but thanks to the appetite for risks and errors of a certain class of people we need to encourage, protect, and respect.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder