Many people have the misconception that in reality, incentives are important; that is, if they do their job well, they will definitely get incentives; but it is not always about the benefits. Professor Nassim Taleb, world-famous Lebanese American philosopher, writer, and scientist, stated this during the press conference held Thursday within the framework of the Science and Business Days 2023 conference in Yerevan.

Very often the balance is not maintained, and if you do something wrong, you have to pay for it; and that is very important, Taleb said, adding that he would like to mention pseudoexperts here. According to him, pseudoexperts are people who have all the characteristics of an expert, except that they can't do their job clearly, Taleb said.

In his view, businessmen, policymakers, politicians, and people who instigate war or are engaged in war should feel its risk, because if they don't, they can press a button in their well-furnished, luxurious office and somewhere people will die, and they will not even feel it.

Taleb said he is an optimist by nature and believes that now the world order is changing. Accordingly, before, people did not feel the consequences of their decisions on their skin, but this is changing. Gradually, people are emerging who start to feel this effect on their skin. Today, governments can take fewer decisions alone and reality is also taken into account. There is such a trend in terms of the economy as well, he added.

Let's imagine that in the 1960s, China decides to start a war and bomb the US; say, he can drop a bomb on New York. However, if China decided something like this these days, it should have dropped the bomb on Shanghai because everything is very interconnected, the professor said.

If there is a US-China war, it will lead to great economic losses, as there will simply be no goods, and people will feel it on their skin, Nassim Taleb stated.

In his turn, Armenian economy minister Vahan Kerobyan said: "The professor talked about putting life at risk. I have to remind that I am one of those people who has put his life on the line, and I am ready to do it again; there is no problem."