Taleb didn’t invent this story, but I do wonder if it’s because of his book that the notion entered popular culture. It’s clear he gets his ancient history mainly from popular culture. (1) Roman soldiers had to swear a military oath on joining the army (apparently Taleb believes other armies don’t do that) (2) there existed an extremely rare military punishment called decimatio, the random execution of 1 in every 10 or every 100 soldiers (Taleb comments that ‘putting more than 10 per cent to death would lead to weakening of the army’ - apparently a 10% casualty rate wouldn’t do that). I’d better grant that later in the same chapter Taleb adds a couple more snippets about the Romans which are at least partially accurate. In 2017 he infamously had an online shouting match with Professor Mary Beard, the eminent Roman historian, in which he insisted tenaciously (and falsely) that there was racial purity within each province in the Roman empire. We shouldn’t expect Mr Taleb to be very accurate about the Romans, mind.
The English went further and had the families of the engineers spend time with them under the bridge after it was built. For the Romans, engineers needed to spend some time under the bridge they built - something that should be required of financial engineers today. Ralph Nader has a simple rule: people voting for war need to have at least one descendant (child or grandchild) exposed to combat. The first heuristic addresses the asymmetry in rewards and punishment, or transfer of fragility between individuals. Here’s Nassim Taleb in a 2012 book:įirst, never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board. But like so many myths about antiquity, it does pop up all over the place. If you haven’t heard the story before, I’ll grant that it is niche. Hmmm, thinks: if I were a Roman engineer, where would be the best place for me to stand under this bridge so it can be tested? (The Ponte di Tiberio, Rimini, dating to the principates of Augustus and Tiberius, early 1st cent. (Bear in mind that the Romans built bridges to go over water.) Did Roman engineers or architects have to stand underneath their bridges, to prove that they were properly built? This story sounds weird, and it’s totally implausible.
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