被随机性愚弄

除非我们操控周围的环境，否则根本没法控制自己去想哪些事、哪些人，就像没法控制自己心脏的跳动一样。

摩尔定律的补充：人类的群体智慧每10年都会降低一半。[1]

不要消除别人的幻觉，除非你能用另一个幻觉替代它。（但也不必太过努力，新的幻觉用不着比原来的幻觉更有说服力。）

悲剧之处在于，你以为是随机的东西大都在你的控制之内，反之亦然。

傻瓜认为自己是特殊的，别人都是普遍的；聪明人认为自己是普遍的，别人都是特殊的。

医学之所以能愚弄人们如此之久，是因为它会把它的成功彰显出来，把它的失误（在现实意义上）埋葬掉。

愚人的陷阱是，你会关注你知道而别人不知道的事情，而不是反过来。

中世纪的人是一台他不了解的简单机器上的螺丝钉，现代人是一台他自以为了解的复杂机器上的螺丝钉。

信息时代的灾难在于，信息的害处远比它的益处增长得快。

从老卡图到现代政客[2]的转变，最能体现出媒体的作用。如果你愿意受到惊吓，可以自己推断一下其作用究竟是什么。

思想清晰是勇气的结果，而不是反过来。[3]

绝大多数沉迷于信息——网络——媒体——报纸的人都很难接受，获得智慧的（主要）方法是从头脑中除去垃圾信息。

聪明人能容忍别人的小缺陷，但不能容忍别人严重的自相矛盾；弱者能容忍别人严重的自相矛盾，但不能容忍别人的小缺陷。

随机性跟复杂的、未知的、无法了解的有序性看起来好像是一回事，有序性跟艺术的随机性看起来好像是一回事。

[1]摩尔定律的基本内容是，计算机的性能每1 8 个月会提高一倍。

[2]例如美国前阿拉斯加州长莎拉·帕林。

[3]自苏格拉底的年代以来，人们最大的错误就是以为缺乏清晰的思想是万恶之源，而不是反过来。

FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS

Unless we manipulate our surroundings, we have as little control over what and whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts.

Corollary to Moore's Law: every ten years, collective wisdom degrades by half.

Never rid anyone of an illusion unless you can replace it in his mind with another illusion. (But don't work too hard on it; the replacement illusion does not even have to be more convincing than the initial one.)

The tragedy is that much of what you think is random is in your control and, what's worse, the opposite.

The fool views himself more unique, and others more generic; the wise views himself more generic and others more unique.

What made medicine fool people for so long was that its successes were prominently displayed and its mistakes (literally) buried.

The sucker's trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don't know, rather than the reverse.

Medieval man was a cog in a wheel he did not understand; modern man is a cog in a complicated system he thinks he understands.

The calamity of the information age is that the toxicity of data increases much faster than its benefits.

The role of the media is best seen in the journey from Cato the Elder to a modern politician. Do some extrapolation if you want to be scared.

Mental clarity is the child of courage, not the other way around.

Most info-web-media-newspaper types have a hard time swallowing the idea that knowledge is reached (mostly) by removing junk from people's heads.

Finer men tolerate others' small inconsistencies though not the large ones; the weak tolerate others' large inconsistencies though not small ones.

Randomness is indistinguishable from complicated, undetected, and undetectable order; but order itself is indistinguishable from artful randomness.