Antifragilum

this idea doesn't come strictly from Incerto but from nasism's tweet.
https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1067478193928617985

This is the most important lesson in risk management that I feel like could be used in everyday life especially for those whose Carrer exists in extremeistan territory. A policemen must ask himself what can lead to danger to other people and himself and then work on removing that threat. A trader must learn how he can lose money on trade before trading. A software engineer must ask what can lead to crash of this program and make sure that IT DOESNT happen.

Working backwards also provides good framework to plan. Its veryyy simple just as for mafia...
Go after those first who can whack you. Once you minimize danger and downsides, then you can maybe hope for upside/benefit

Good point. This approach works for known risks that have happened before or where there’s some kind of experience to learn from. For example, traders and policemen can assume the worst-case scenario (like losing all their money or even dying) without needing prior historic experience. They take precautions to prevent these outcomes before they happen.

E.g., the CEO of United Healthcare didn’t follow this idea enough. He pissed people off so much that one person got mad enough to act, and now the consequences are all over the media. If similar situations had happened in the recent past, his security might have been better, or he might’ve avoided angering people to that extreme in the first place. Other CEOs are already learning from this. Some even changed their public profiles to be less visible right after the incident. This shows how others can use his experience to increase their own survival chances. They should thank him for his sacrifice and the new information about their tail risks