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We’re going to start getting more abstract in our discussion of how skin in the game improves the world with the far-reaching principle of the passionate few (or, as Taleb calls it, the “stubborn minority”).
Taleb argues that the state of the world is largely the result of small groups passionately fighting for what they want rather than a majority’s consensus.
We’re going to further define this idea, then show how the concept applies to Politics, Religion, Language, and Morality. We’ll conclude by explaining how you yourself can be part of a passionate few.
Taleb asserts that civilization is disproportionately impacted by the preferences of strong-willed minorities. These passionate few forcibly put as much skin in the game as possible, making more sacrifices than anyone else is willing to make in order to get what they want.
The passionate few have the capacity to drastically shape society because unless the majority is strongly opposed to the preferences of the minority, the indifferent whole will let the minority have their way.
A simple example: A teenager is obsessed with sci-fi blockbusters. None of the other members of her family are particularly interested in sci-fi, but they often agree to watch them with her simply because they aren’t strongly opposed to the genre. If there’s no reason to deny the preferences of a passionate minority, the majority will appear to adopt these preferences.
In this way, the passionate few are a perfect example of one of Taleb’s main arguments we discussed in the first section of this guide: Complex systems often behave in ways that contradict surface-level impressions.
To a distant observer, the passionate few’s preferences falsely appear to belong to the entire group. In the example above, the entire family bought movie tickets even though most of them didn’t really want to see the movie. A statistical illusion like this could lead analysts to false conclusions—for example, the movie studio could falsely conclude that the lead actor in this sci-fi movie is what made it such a box-office success. This is why Taleb identifies as a “localist,” arguing that decisions should be made by people who are directly involved (i.e. with skin in the game).
Malcolm Gladwell’s Law of The Few
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the power the passionate few have in starting a movement. Gladwell attributes the idea-spreading potential of the passionate few to specific personality traits, categorizing them into three types.
“Connectors” have a far larger social circle than average, and are particularly adept at spreading ideas to groups that normally wouldn’t hear about them. To return to our example of the breakout sci-fi movie, connectors would be social butterflies who can’t stop talking about the movie to everyone they run into. “Mavens” are reliable experts whose opinions people are far more likely to respect. A beloved critic who praises the sci-fi movie online would be a Maven. Finally, “Salesmen” are best at convincing people to accept their ideas. They’re charismatic speakers that make people want to share their feelings and opinions—the irresistibly excitable teen who convinced her family to go see the movie in our earlier example is a good Salesman.
Gladwell credits these “passionate” types of people with spreading successful movements, but Taleb expands his idea of the passionate few to include those who are unconsciously “passionate”—who simply have inflexible preferences. It’s possible that Gladwell is overemphasizing the personality traits we can see, and underemphasizing the simple fact that all these people have strong opinions.
Taleb uses the idea of the passionate few to explain why historically some religions spread and others died out.
He credits the spread of Islam throughout the Middle East to specific religious rules: first, anyone who married a Muslim had to convert to Islam, along with any future children. Second, converting to Islam was permanent, and renunciation of Islam was blasphemy. Across many generations, these uncompromising rules overpowered many religions with more lax requirements. Gnostic religions that allowed one spouse to keep their own religion soon nearly vanished entirely—their “indifferent” preferences were overridden.