up:: [[]] Tags:: #🌱 # Skin in the game Having skin in the game means you bear the risk of your actions or decisions and are therefore more trustworthy. It's the main theme of Nassim Taleb's book [[Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb|Skin In The Game]]. His central argument is that those with no skin in the game shouldn't be allowed to make important decisions. They have nothing to risk for making a bad decision. [[Historically skin in the game was much more prevalent in many societies]]. However, having [[Skin in the game]] is not enough. You need to make sure you have your skin in the right game. For example, Doctors risk having their skin in the wrong game by falling for [[Goodheart’s Law]]. They can treat one isolated metric as a goal. Lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower Saturated fat. This encourages them to prescribe many drugs to avoid legal trouble in the short term and so they don't fall out with drug companies. Technically they have skin in the game with the drug companies but it's in the wrong game. In the long term, prescribing unnecessary drugs like this hurts your health but because it's so slow it isn't as noticeable. Related: [[On the fundamental difference between wisdom and knowledge]] [[On the difficulty of passing on wisdom compared to knowledge]] [[Knowledge acquired through action is vastly superior than knowledge acquired through only contemplation]]