It may seem unusual that an economist would talk about culture. Usually, we talk about prices and production, quantities produced, employment, the structure of production, scarce resources, and entrepreneurship.
But there are certain things that economists can say about the culture, and more precisely, that economists can say about the transformation of the culture. So what is culture? Well, to put it simply, it is the way we do things. This can include the way we eat — whether or not we dine with family members on a regular basis, for example — how we sleep, and how we use automobiles or other modes of transportation. And of course, the way we produce, consume, or accumulate capital are important aspects of the culture as well.
Rabbi Zelig Epstein: Leadership and Honesty
Quoting Rabbi Elchanan Poupko (sans the undiscerning editorializing):
When asked what was his greatest accomplishment he would come with to Olam Haba, R’ Zelig thought for a moment and said: “For now, I just hope I didn’t hurt anyone.”
This isn’t humility, false or otherwise, but good sense. This is about the non-maleficence principle. Indeed, wisdom is avoiding harm, and good advice is advice that doesn’t make things worse. Wisdom is shockingly rare!
We need to trash all “leaders” who don’t appreciate this yesterday.
Nassim Taleb in Antifragile (I didn’t see inside):
Recall that the interventionista focuses on positive action—doing. Just like positive definitions, we saw that acts of commission are respected and glorified by our primitive minds and lead to, say, naive government interventions that end in disaster, followed by generalized complaints about naive government interventions, as these, it is now accepted, end in disaster, followed by more naive government interventions. Acts of omission, not doing something, are not considered acts and do not appear to be part of one’s mission.
[…]
I have used all my life a wonderfully simple heuristic: charlatans are recognizable in that they will give you positive advice, and only positive advice, exploiting our gullibility and sucker-proneness for recipes that hit you in a flash as just obvious, then evaporate later as you forget them. Just look at the “how to” books with, in their title, “Ten Steps for—” (fill in: enrichment, weight loss, making friends, innovation, getting elected, building muscles, finding a husband, running an orphanage, etc.).