An excellent interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb by Ed Smith in Timesonline (you can read the whole thing here ). My favourite insight from Ed Smith was this:
“… Understanding the centrality of luck in life transcends the financial realm. It is no coincidence that civilised people acknowledge their good fortune. It has always made practical sense. The idea of noblesse oblige is a way of turning away the wrath of those who missed out in life’s lottery. Any social establishment that wishes to survive needs to be concerned with preserving the status quo. A phoney meritocracy of people who got massively lucky and think they did it all themselves is a recipe for social disaster. If that is what we have, as Taleb’s logic implies, then the credit crunch will be just the tip of a much nastier iceberg.
Understanding that we do not, and cannot, live in a perfectly functioning meritocracy is a civilising concept – because it leads us to be less self-congratulatory, more charitable and better mannered.”