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Antaeus Whacked (NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB)

Antaeus Whacked (NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB)

Antaeus was a giant, or rather a semi-giant of sorts, the literal son
of Mother Earth, Gaea, and Poseidon, the god of the sea. He had a
strange occupation, which consisted of forcing passersby in his
country, (Greek) Libya, to wrestle; his thing was to pin his victims
to the ground and crush them. This macabre hobby was apparently
the expression of filial devotion; Antaeus aimed at building a
temple to his father, Poseidon, using for raw material the skulls of
his victims.
Antaeus was deemed to be invincible, but there was a trick. He
derived his strength from contact with his mother, Earth.
Physically separated from contact with Earth, he lost all his
powers. Hercules, as part of his twelve labors (in one variation of
the tale), had for homework to whack Antaeus. He managed to lift
him off the ground and terminated him by crushing him as his feet
remained out of contact with his mamma.

We retain from this vignette that, just like Antaeus, you
cannot separate anything from contact with the
ground. And the contact with the real world is done via skin in the
game—having an exposure to the real world, and paying a price
for its consequences, good or bad. The abrasions of your skin
guide your learning and discovery, a mechanism of organic
signaling, what the Greeks called pathemata mathemata (“guide
your learning through pain,” something mothers of young children
know rather well).

 

 

SKIN IN THE GAME

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB



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