Risk

The Black Swan 《黑天鹅》 Nassim Nicholas Taleb Taleb argues that history and markets are shaped mainly by a very small number of extreme events — precisely the ones existing models cannot… Finance Classic Index 95

Superintelligence 《超级智能》 Nick Bostrom Writing before superintelligence existed, Bostrom systematically asked how much leverage humanity would retain once an intelligence far beyond our… Artificial Intelligence Classic Index 94

Antifragile 《反脆弱》 Nassim Nicholas Taleb Taleb proposes a third category beyond robust and fragile: antifragile, meaning systems that not only withstand volatility, stress, and error but… Finance Classic Index 93

Fooled by Randomness 《随机漫步的傻瓜》 Nassim Nicholas Taleb Taleb writes from a trader's perspective to show how we explain luck as skill and treat survivors as examples, thereby systematically overrating the… Finance Classic Index 91

Human Compatible 《AI 新生》 Stuart Russell Russell proposes a solution that looks like a concession but is in fact demanding: do not give machines explicit objectives; make them uncertain… Artificial Intelligence Classic Index 90

Against the Gods 《与天为敌》 Peter Bernstein Bernstein tells how humans learned to live with risk: from gambling and the mathematics of probability to insurance, statistics, and financial… Finance Classic Index 90

Manias, Panics, and Crashes 《疯狂、惊恐和崩溃》 Charles Kindleberger Kindleberger breaks financial crises into a recognizable sequence: a new opportunity appears, credit expands, speculation builds, insiders exit… Finance Classic Index 89

The Most Important Thing 《投资最重要的事》 Howard Marks Marks sets out, in short memo-like chapters, what he calls second-level thinking: do not ask whether a company is good, ask what consensus the… Investment Classic Index 89

Margin of Safety 《安全边际》 Seth Klarman Klarman starts from the priority of avoiding loss over pursuing gain, argues that value investing is the most logically sound approach, and explains… Investment Classic Index 88

This Time Is Different 《这次不一样》 Carmen Reinhart Reinhart and Rogoff assemble eight centuries of debt and crisis data across dozens of countries to show that sovereign debt crises, banking crises… Economics Classic Index 88

The Alignment Problem 《人机对齐》 Brian Christian Christian splits alignment into three layers: the objectives a model learns may not be the ones we intend, the biases it inherits from data may… Artificial Intelligence Classic Index 87

Superforecasting 《超预测》 Philip Tetlock Based on a government-funded forecasting tournament, Tetlock compares the long-run accuracy of experts against amateurs and finds a small group of… Psychology & Cognitive Science Classic Index 87

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds 《大癫狂》 Charles Mackay Writing in the nineteenth century, Mackay compiled a dossier of collective illusions: tulip mania, the South Sea Bubble, alchemy, the Crusades, and… Finance Classic Index 86

When Genius Failed 《赌金者》 Roger Lowenstein Long-Term Capital Management gathered two Nobel laureates and some of Wall Street’s best traders, then collapsed under leverage within months in… Finance Classic Index 86

The Big Short 《大空头》 Michael Lewis Lewis follows a handful of small funds and traders who noticed that US mortgage securities were systematically mispriced, bet against subprime debt… Finance Classic Index 85

The Psychology of Money 《金钱心理学》 Morgan Housel Housel uses short essays to argue that financial outcomes depend more on behavior than on knowledge: patience, room for error, and honesty about… Psychology & Cognitive Science Classic Index 82

The Battle for Investment Survival 《投资生存之战》 Gerald Loeb Loeb’s practical handbook from the 1930s argues that the first task of investing is to protect capital, which requires a willingness to cut losses… US Stock Investment Classic Index 81

Technology & Science 2021 You Bet Your Life Paul A. Offit You Bet Your Life 《赌命》 Paul A. Offit Medical risk, vaccine development, and the case for scientific reasoning. Technology & Science AZM's list