David Johnson

“Beliefs matter because people act upon their beliefs—whether those beliefs are true or not (and it’s far easier to be wrong than right).”
― Peter Boghossian, How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

“We remember the martyrs who died for a cause that we knew about, never those no less effective in their contribution but whose cause we were never aware of—precisely because they were successful. Our ingratitude toward the poètes maudits fades completely in front of this other type of thanklessness. This is a far more vicious kind of ingratitude: the feeling of uselessness on the part of the silent hero. I will illustrate with the following thought experiment. Assume that a legislator with courage, influence, intellect, vision, and perseverance manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect and employment on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high costs to the struggling airlines)—just in case terrorists decide to use planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. I know this is lunacy, but it is just a thought experiment (I am aware that there may be no such thing as a legislator with intellect, courage, vision, and perseverance; this is the point of the thought experiment). The legislation is not a popular measure among the airline personnel, as it complicates their lives. But it would certainly have prevented 9/11. The person who imposed locks on cockpit doors gets no statues in public squares, not so much as a quick mention of his contribution in his obituary. “Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease.” Seeing how superfluous his measure was, and how it squandered resources, the public, with great help from airline pilots, might well boot him out of office. Vox clamantis in deserto. He will retire depressed, with a great sense of failure. He will die with the impression of having done nothing useful.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“The payoff of a human venture is, in general, inversely proportional to what it is expected to be.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable