"Tourism is a curse."

Tourism is a curse.
The place becomes unlivable. Real estate values rise but future generations priced out of the market. Convenience stores become luxury outlets. Natives move out, jet setters own empty apartments..

The planet is too small & everybody wants to go to Venice. pic.twitter.com/xFXyZVJmNb

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 7, 2024

Here's the article, "Barcelona residents protest against mass tourism/The city's rising cost of housing, up 68% in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions" (Le Monde).

Under the slogan "Enough! Let's put limits on tourism", some 2,800 people – according to police – marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.... The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7% from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The most visited region was Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, with 18 million....

All you need is a high enough tourist tax, right? 

"Simply, an Ivy League education can hide incompetence for a very, very long time."

2) Note that Gladwell has some data on good lawyers having a low LSAT.
And, of course,https://t.co/QnGPLVOTiQ

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) November 8, 2022

"Restaurants are fragile; they compete with each other, but the collective of local restaurants is antifragile for that very reason."

"Had restaurants been individually robust, hence immortal, the overall business would be either stagnant or weak, and would deliver nothing better than cafeteria food — and I mean Soviet-style cafeteria food. Further, it would be marred with systemic shortages, with, once in a while, a complete crisis and government bailout. All that quality, stability, and reliability are owed to the fragility of the restaurant itself."

A quote from the 2012 book "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder," that I quoted before, in a comment on a 2013 post of mine called "Notes on success from 2 Scotts — Adams and Fitzgerald — and one Bob."

The quote is newly interesting in this time of the coronavirus! Individual restaurants are dying like mad — "One in three New York restaurants won’t open after the pandemic." Does that "Antifragile" quote inject optimism into this horrible experience? The "collective of local restaurants" will do well because the individual places go under? Does that still apply when a third of the restaurants go under within one year... and the ones that survive are disabled from picking up the slack? The customers who would pack the remaining restaurants are building up the desire to come back whenever it's possible to eat out again.

Why was I reading that old post? I saw that Scott Adams tweeted a link to a post of mine yesterday, and it made me wonder how many times I'd blogged about him. Answer: 204. Most of that is from January 2016 and later, but there are 2 earlier posts, one from 2011 (about boredom) and the one from 2013 with the "Notes on success." Fitzgerald is F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Bob is, of course, Bob Dylan.

"The Times editorial board has been sharply critical of the Trump presidency, on grounds of policy and personal conduct."

"Not all readers have been persuaded. In the spirit of open debate, and in hopes of helping readers who agree with us better understand the views of those who don’t, we wanted to let Mr. Trump’s supporters make their best case for him as the first year of his presidency approaches its close. Tomorrow we’ll present some letters from readers who voted for Mr. Trump but are now disillusioned, and from those reacting to today’s letters and our decision to provide Trump voters this platform."

Wrote the NYT editors yesterday, so today's the day for the page full of pro-Trump letters.

That's a big step away from the Don't-Normalize-Him narrative of a year ago.

ADDED: A few excerpts, each from different letters:

"If I wanted a scripted smooth talker for president, I’d have voted for someone else. An unscripted Mr. Trump feels more authentic to me, and I still don’t see him as a politician. If the election were held again today, I would 100 percent vote for him again."

"Who knew that all it would take to make progress was vision, chutzpah and some testosterone?"

"I loved George W. Bush, but he failed on policy over and over again. If it takes putting up with Mr. Trump’s brash ways to see things get done, that is a deal I’m willing to accept. To be honest, I’m not sure he would have accomplished what he has so far without being an unrelenting public bully."

"As a child of the ’60s I admire his iconoclastic nature, optimism and unapologetic humanity. When asked during the campaign about his truthfulness, he replied that maybe he is too truthful."

"I have a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s and master’s from Harvard; I’m a former hedge fund trader and now an academic.... [Trump] has turned a fragile nation 'anti-fragile' (the scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s term). Before Mr. Trump, we were scared of any volatility. Oh no, ISIS! Oh no, banks! The more chaos there was, the worse we were. Now volatility is our friend. The more chaos, the better! Entrepreneurship up. Optimism up. Good old American problem solving is back! You know who loves change? Capitalists. Mr. Trump has led us on that spiritual exodus."

"The anti-fragile is beyond the resilient or robust."

"The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the anti-fragile gets better and better." On that theory:

1. Build cities that won’t just withstand super storms, but gain from them....

2. Let banks fail and abandon economic stabilization practices....

3. Eat like a caveman....

4. Workout like an Olympian. Sleep like a college kid....

5. Be a doer not a thinker....

The author... points to the idea that rich countries have high levels of education and literacy. Therefore, there’s the belief that education leads to wealth, when actually the opposite occurs—countries get rich, and then they get educated. Since studies show that education does not equal GDP, to be anti-fragile, first have skills, and then obtain formal education.

An example given is, “The merchant profession has lots of variance. A dentist has very little.” Although parents want a life of stability for their children, Taleb’s theory would put the odds of success on the merchant in an unpredictable world. “College insulates students from downsides,” he says, “but also prevents brilliance.”

In terms of theory, doing is convex and study is concave. Taleb asks, “Can you study chemistry for a formula for the perfect hummus?” In cooking you can get a big gain from an error (adding lemon or garlic) but you only find out by trial-and-error.

Taleb’s philosophy is also hopeful about our country's mediocre global math and science scores, which he believes, “don’t capture the effectiveness of our citizens on the world,” because we are a country of risk-takers and entrepreneurs.

Here's the book: "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder," by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (who, according to the linked article is "a notorious jerk." Well, he's got his own way of talking, which I love. (Just bought the book, too.)