Improvement usually comes from removal — subtract the harmful before adding the helpful.
Powerful as a heuristic and wrong as a universal rule — antibiotics, vaccines and sanitation are additions, and the “nature knows best” strand would have opposed most of what raised life expectancy.
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Typed edges. Anything below the line was authored on the other note and derived here.
contradicts →Write recurring decisions down as principles — a decision made once and codified stops costing willpower and starts compounding.Two opposite theories of improvement. Dalio accumulates written rules until the machine is complete; Taleb argues the additions are where fragility enters and the removals are what actually compound. Worth holding unresolved rather than picking.
← supported byIntervention carries costs that stay invisible when the harm is diffuse and the cure is credited.
The asymmetry that justifies subtraction: the benefits of intervening are attributed, the damages are dispersed, so the feedback loop systematically over-rewards action.
← has exampleEliminate what makes you fragile before pursuing upside — debt and obligation prevent the risk-taking that opportunity requires.Taleb’s subtraction principle applied to a career. The ordering claim is the useful part: removal is not one option among many, it is the step that has to come first.