This piece resonated in the wake of the mess around California’s AB5 legislation, which puts limitations on classifying workers as independent contractors. The backlash to AB5 shows how it’s a case study in unintended consequences.

The modern interventionist’s view wildly overestimates how well problems are understood, and what the second- or third-order consequences of an intervention might be.

I’m reminded here of Hayek’s quote on economics (applicable to any uncertain, massively complex field):

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can...

I found this piece cited in Taleb’s Antifragile, a unique case of an author citing a paper that was itself inspired by a galley of that book. The concept of “antifragility” (systems that gain or improve from disorder, volatility, and chaos) is fascinating. All organic or organic-like systems (economies, social orders) fall into this category, and here we see the concepts applied in biology:

Living systems are antifragile in that they can do much more than simply respond to the “pressure” of the environment by random mutations followed by selection; they have an in-built property...

Morgan Housel on investing:

Every great investment is born from decisions that were harder than they appear to an outsider. There are so few exceptions to this. Investors have a fascination with no-brainers, obvious decisions, and easy money. The phrases should be chapter titles in a book on the ease of deluding yourself.

The “edge” is in enduring stress and putting skin in the game:

Finding above-average investments requires either being smarter than others, or willing to endure more discomfort and uncertainty than others. It’s natural to focus on the former, because the industry is full of...