Incerto

What Hacker News says

1. treetalkerAug 2026
   > I'm probably not in the position of educating teenagers as my life has not been a success.

   Not true! The OP should learn not only about (and from) models but also anti-models!

   Addressing OP:

   On anti-models, read NN Taleb's books (the Incerto) and Charlie Munger (his speech on inversion / thinking about what you would do, and how you would do it, in order to ensure a miserable life — and then not doing those things). Read statements from the elderly / terminally ill about what they regret having done or not done in their lifetimes.

   A lesson I wish I had learned at your age: for most things in life, B– quality or "80% of the perfect performance/solution" is almost always more than enough, and can be accomplished quickly. (E.g., it's easy and fast to sweep the floor so that it's mostly clean / 80% of optimal cleanliness. You feel better about your surroundings, you clear your head, and fewer future problems arise.) This is the 80/20 principle at work. Get to 80% on everything fast, and then only spend time polishing/perfecting what really matters. (I was raised in a perfectionist family/environment/culture — to my detriment, in many ways.) Similarly, it's OK (and probably beneficial) to do most of your workout sessions (~80%!) at 80% effort. You don't need to go HAM / 6th gear all the time.

   Learn that questions are often more important than answers. And learn to ask better questions.

   Learn basic probability and expected value, and apply those principles to your own daily life. It's easy to do several times a day in normal situations.

   Learn to take (and avoid) repeated, small actions in order to put yourself in a slightly better position with regard to your future. (Increase your optionality; take repeated beneficial actions.) Pick up that dirty cup on your way to the kitchen. Don't drink two beers every day. Don't smoke.

   Ask yourself: "If I do (or avoid doing) this same thing 1,000 times (or days) in a row, where will I end up?" (That helps you develop consistency and the habit of repeated actions/practice, and it magnifies the effects of your daily choices.)

   Remind yourself: "What I do today, I do every day. What I do now, I choose to do every time I have the choice."

   Read real books, not Internet stuff. Read particularly from (long) before 2022 (avoid LLM-generated text). Read as much as you can and develop a maintainable note-taking system.

   Learn other languages and read the greatest books from other countries, cultures, and eras.

   Taleb's general rule is not to read anything written in the last 10 years. Take that with a grain of salt.

   On reading (and not reading) books in general, and in a meta-reading sense, I strongly urge you to read How to Read a Book (by Adler & Doren) and How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (by Pierre Bayard).

   You'll also find no shortage of suggested reading and lists of books of all sorts here on HN.

   Daily exercise, good eating, sleep, hygiene, and overall mental health and self-care are table stakes. Personally, I've found that my optimal amount of physical activity is much higher than one would think: 2–3 hours per day, 5–6 days per week. (That's my experience, not a prescription for you.) Taking care of myself has required life- and work-organization choices and sacrifices to make it happen. Everything is about trade-offs.

   The most important thing is that it's better to consistently practice implementing a single piece of advice than to collect or merely think about or imagine implementing lists of advice. You'll find lots of great advice everywhere. But EXECUTION IS EVERYTHING.

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2. scoofyJun 2026
   I cannot recommend Rory Sutherland's book Alchemy enough.

   It is up there with great book for me like Taleb's Incerto series when it comes to deeply interesting ideas I would not have noticed if they hadn't been pointed out to me.

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy (the subtitle of this book seems to be different in different countries)

   https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/INO/incerto/

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3. scoofyFeb 2026
   So, I really felt like more people should be reading Nassim Taleb's Incerto series of books. A lot of the issues that fall out of AI he dealt with in his books like ten years ago.

   He gives one the best pieces of advice I've ever heard: if you are going to do something for a living, make sure it is NOT scalable.

   If you do something that isn't really scalable, like being a welder or a tailor, then you only have to compete against the tailors in your neighborhood, and you can easily find a neighborhood that doesn't have a tailor. If you're building a scalable product, you'll always be competing against the best, most well funded, smartest people in the room.

   Everyone here has grown up in the birth of the internet -- a once in ever event -- where building something scalable was just there for the taking. That's never going to exist again basically.

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4. GenegoDec 2025
   When I see stuff like this, I feel like rereading the Incerto by Taleb just to refresh and sharpen my bullshit senses.
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5. max_Aug 2025
   There two books I constantly consult thought the year.

   1. Incerto by Nassim Taleb

   2. Pocket Oracle by Baltasar Gracion

   1) Is very popular (though not throughly read)

   2) Is not known much. But I would say its the most important book todo with "association with humans"

   My view of the world changed completely by reading these books.

   But I came across them completely by mistake.

   Maybe other people have books they feel the same about?

   Please share some titles.

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6. gmusleraApr 2025
   In general the Incerto series by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) was worth it. The Selfish Gene, System thinking A primer, I am a strange loop, Sapiens are some books that I read recently that had a lasting impression.
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