Fooled by randomness!!

This piece from 'Fooled by randomness' by Taleb just stuns me:

"Sadly, I learned quite a bit from Niederhoffer, mostly by contrast, and particularly from the last example: not to approach anything as a game to win, except of course, if it is a game. Even then, I do not like the asphyxiating structure of the competitive games and the diminishing aspect of deriving pride from a numerical performance. I also learned to stay away from people of a competitive nature, as they have a tendency to commoditize and reduce the world to categories, like how many papers they publish in a given year, or how they rank in the league tables. There is something non philosophical about investing one's pride and ego into a 'my house/library/car is bigger than that of others in my category'- it is downright foolish to claim to be first in one's category all the while sitting on a time bomb.
To conclude, extreme empiricism, competitiveness, and an absence of logical structure to one's inference can be a quite explosive combination"


Think about it!!!