本文选自《黑天鹅》结语，标题为《一半一半——如何与黑天鹅打成平手》by taleb, P.299
taleb 是谁？《黑天鹅》的作者，他自己这么说：
Nassim Nicholas Taleb：
Flaneur(mostly), trader, and co-founder of the Real World Risk Insitute
为什么要搬来这篇文章，可以参见《NO | 没有》，以下是中英对照。
It is now time for a few last words.
最后再说几句。
Half the time I am a hyperskeptic; the other half I hold certainties and can be intransigent about them, with a very stubborn disposition. Of course I am hyperskeptic where others, particularly those I call bildungsphilisters, are gullible, and gullible where others seem skeptical. I am skeptical about confirmation—though only when errors are costly—not about disconfirmation. Having plenty of data will not provide confirmation, but a single instance can disconfirm. I am skeptical when I suspect wild randomness, gullible when I believe that randomness is mild.
一半时间里，我是一名超级怀疑主义者；另一半时间里，我又坚定不移甚至有些固执地相信事物的确定性。当然，当其他人，尤其是那些被我称为文化市侩的人持轻信态度的时候，我是超级怀疑主义者；当其他人看上去持怀疑态度的时候，我是轻信者。我对证实的事物持怀疑态度，但只是在错误的代价很高的时候，而对证伪的事物不持怀疑态度。掌握大量数据并不一定能够证实什么，但一个个例就可以证伪。当我怀疑存在疯狂随机性时，我保持怀疑态度；当我认为只存在温和随机性时，我选择相信。
Half the time I hate Black Swans, the other half I love them. I like the randomness that produces the texture of life, the positive accidents, the success of Apelles the painter, the potential gifts you do not have to pay for. Few understand the beauty in the story of Apelles; in fact, most people exercise their error avoidance by repressing the Apelles in them.
一半时间里，我讨厌黑天鹅，另一半时间里，我热爱黑天鹅。我喜欢为生活带来细节、正面意外、画家阿佩勒斯的成功、不必花钱的礼物的随机性。很少有人理解阿佩勒斯故事中的美。实际上，大部分人通过压抑自己体内的阿佩勒斯来避免犯错。
Half the time I am hyperconservative in the conduct of my own affairs; the other half I am hyperaggressive. This may not seem exceptional, except that my conservatism applies to what others call risk taking, and my aggressiveness to areas where others recommend caution.
一半时间里，我对自己的事务超级保守，另一半时间里，我超级冒险。这似乎并没有什么特别，只不过我在其他人冒险的地方实行保守主义，在其他人谨慎的地方冒险。
I worry less about small failures, more about large, potentially terminal ones. I worry far more about the “promising” stock market, particularly the “safe” blue chip stocks, than I do about specula“tive ventures the former present invisible risks, the latter offer no surprises since you know how volatile they are and can limit your downside by investing smaller amounts.
我不怎么在意小的失败，而是在意大的终极性失败。我更担心“极具前景”的股票市场，尤其是“安全的”蓝筹股，而不是从事投机的公司，前者代表看不见的风险，后者则不会造成意外，因为你知道它们的波动性有多大，并且可以通过只进行小额投资来控制亏损面。
I worry less about advertised and sensational risks, more about the more vicious hidden ones. I worry less about terrorism than about diabetes, less about matters people usually worry about because they are obvious worries, and more about matters that lie outside our consciousness and common discourse (I also have to confess that I do not worry a lot—I try to worry about matters I can do something about). I worry less about embarrassment than about missing an opportunity.
我不担心广为人知和耸人听闻的风险，而担心更为险恶的隐藏风险。我不担心恐怖主义，而担心糖尿病。我不担心人们通常担心的问题，因为它们显而易见，而担心我们的意识和正常过程以外的事物。（我也必须承认我担心的东西不多，因为我努力只担心有计可施的事情。）我不担心困境，而担心失去机会。
In the end this is a trivial decision making rule: I am very aggressive when I can gain exposure to positive Black Swans—when a failure would be of small moment—and very conservative when I am under threat from a negative Black Swan. I am very aggressive when an error in a model can benefit me, and paranoid when the error can hurt. This may not be too interesting except that it is exactly what “other people do not do. In finance, for instance, people use flimsy theories to manage their risks and put wild ideas under “rational” scrutiny.
最终存在一个小小的决策法则：当我能够受到正面黑天鹅事件影响时，我会非常冒险，这时失败只有很小的影响；当我有可能受到负面黑天鹅事件的袭击时，我会非常保守。当某个模型中的错误对我有好处时，我会非常冒险；当错误对我有害时，我会非常多疑。这可能并不十分有趣，但这正是别人没有做到的。例如，在金融业，人们使用脆弱的理论来管理风险，把狂野的思想置于“理性”的审视之下。
Half the time I am intellectual, the other half I am a no-nonsense practitioner. I am no-nonsense and practical in academic matters, and intellectual when it comes to practice.
一半时间里，我是思想者，另一半时间里我是是个理智的实践者。我对学术问题保持理智和务实，对实际问题保持哲学思考。
Half the time I am shallow, the other half I want to avoid shallowness. I am shallow when it comes to aesthetics; I avoid shallowness in the context of risks and returns. My aestheticism makes me put poetry before prose, Greeks before Romans, dignity before elegance, elegance before culture, culture before erudition, erudition before knowledge, knowledge before intellect, and intellect before truth. But only for matters that are Black Swan free. Our tendency is to be very rational, except when it comes to the Black Swan.
一半时间里，我很肤浅，另一半时间里我想避免肤浅。对于美学我很肤浅，对于风险和回报我避免肤浅。我的唯美主义让我把诗歌置于散文之上，把希腊人置于罗马人之上，把尊严置于优雅之上，把优雅罝于文化之上，把文化置于学识之上，把学识罝于知识之上，把知识置于智力之上，把智力置于真理之上。但这一区别只是针对不受黑天鹅影响的事。我们的本性喜欢理性，除了面对黑天鹅的时候。
Half the people I know call me irreverent (you have read my comments about your local Platonified professors), half call me fawning (you have “seen my slavish devotion to Huet, Bayle, Popper, Poincaré, Montaigne, Hayek, and others).
我认识的一半人称我对权威不敬（你已经看到我对那些柏拉图化的教授们的评价），一半人称我对权威奉承（你已经看到我对休特、拜耳、波普尔、彭加莱、蒙田、哈耶克和其他人的崇拜）。
Half the time I hate Nietzsche, the other half I like his prose.
一半时间我讨厌尼采，另一半时间我喜欢他的散文。
何时错过列车没有痛苦
I once received another piece of life-changing advice, which, unlike the advice I got from a friend in Chapter 3, I find applicable, wise, and empirically valid. My classmate in Paris, the novelist-to-be Jean-Olivier Tedesco, pronounced, as he prevented me from running to catch a subway, “I don’t run for trains.”
我曾经得到另一条改变生活的建议，与我第三章从朋友那里得到的建议不同，它实用、明智、有效。我在巴黎的同学，后来的小说家让-奥利维尔·泰德斯克（Jean-Olivier Tedesco）认为我不必跑着赶地铁，他说：“我不会去追赶列车。”
Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.
藐视命运。我一直教我自己拒绝追赶时间表。这可能只是一条很小的建议，但它印在了我的脑海里。从拒绝追赶列车中，我体会到“优雅”的真正价值和行为中的美学，一种控制我的时间、行程和生活的感觉。错过列车，只有在你追赶它时才是痛苦的！同样，不能达到别人对你期望的成功，只有在它也是你所追求的东西时才是痛苦的。
You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice.
你凌驾于争斗与名利思想之上，而不是之外，只要你愿意这样选择。
Quitting a high-paying position, if it is your decision, will seem a better payoff than the utility of the money involved (this may seem crazy, but I’ve tried it and it works). This is the first step toward the stoic’s throwing a four-letter word at fate. You have far more control over your life if you decide on your criterion by yourself.
只要是你的决定，放弃一份高薪职位带来的回报会超过金钱带给你的效用（这似乎很疯狂，但我试过并且确实如此）。这是向命运说出“去你妈的”的第一步。如果你确定了自己的标准，你对自己的生活会有大得多的控制。
Mother Nature has given us some defense mechanisms: as in Aesop’s fable, one of these is our ability to consider that the grapes we cannot (or did not) reach are sour. But an aggressively stoic prior disdain and rejection of the grapes is even more rewarding. Be aggressive; be the one to resign, if you have the guts.
大自然给了我们一些防御机制：如伊索寓言中写到的一样，其中之一就是把我们不能（或没有）吃到的葡萄想成酸的，但如果你更加主动地在之前就鄙视并拒绝葡萄，你的满足感会更大。主动出击，主动辞职，只要你有勇气。
It is more difficult to be a loser in a game you set up yourself.
你在一个自己设计的游戏里更加难以失败。
In Black Swan terms, this means that you are exposed to the improbable only if you let it control you. You always control what you do; so make this your end.
从黑天鹅的角度讲，这意味着只有你让小概率事件控制自己的时候，你才会受到它的影响。你要总是控制你自己做什么，把这当成你的目标吧。
结尾
But all these ideas, all this philosophy of induction, all these problems with knowledge, all these wild opportunities and scary possible losses, everything palls in front of the following metaphysical consideration.
不过，所有这些思想，所有这些归纳的哲学，所有这些知识问题，所有这些疯狂的机会和可怕的损失，在下面这个形而上学的问题面前都变得简单：我有时惊异于为什么人们会因为一顿不好吃的饭、一杯冷咖啡、一次社交挫折或粗鲁的接待而伤心一天或者感到愤怒。
I am sometimes taken aback by how people can have a miserable day or get angry because they feel cheated by a bad meal, cold coffee, a social rebuff, or a rude reception. Recall my discussion in Chapter 8 on the difficulty in seeing the true odds of the events that run your own life. We are quick to forget that just being alive is an extraordinary piece of good luck, a remote event, a chance occurrence of monstrous proportions.
回忆一下，我在第八章讨论过人们难以看到自己生活中发生的事件的真实概率。我们很容易忘记我们活着本身就是极大的运气，一个可能性微小的事件，一个极大的偶然。
Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet a billion times the size of the earth. The speck of dust represents the odds in favor of your being born; the huge planet would be the odds against it. So stop sweating the small stuff. Don’t be like the ingrate who got a castle as a present and worried about the mildew in the bathroom. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth—remember that you are a Black Swan. And thank you for reading my book.
想象一个 10 亿倍于地球的行星边上的一粒尘埃。这粒尘埃就代表你出生的概率，庞大的行星则代表相反的概率。所以不要再为小事烦恼了。不要再像一个忘恩负义者，得到一座城堡，还要介意浴室里的霉菌。不要再检查别人赠与你的马匹的牙齿，请记住，你就是黑天鹅。最后，谢谢你读我的书。
题图作者：Clker
往期回顾
Incerto Time
Just as there are authors who enjoy having written and others who enjoy writing, there are books you enjoy reading and others you enjoy having read.
就像有的作家喜欢创作，有的作家喜欢“创作过”的感觉一样，有的书你喜欢读，有的书你很高兴已经“读过了”。
