Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Random House Trade Paperbacks (2014), Edition: Reprint, 544 pages
Description
Business. Philosophy. Nonfiction. Economics. HTML:Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb�??s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don�??t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls �??antifragile�?� is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call �??efficient�?� not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb�??s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile �??Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.�?��??The Economist �??A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our li… (more)
Media reviews
Wall Street Journal
Sometimes Nassim Nicholas Taleb is led astray by his contrarianism, but then that is his point: If you don't take risks, you don't get results. This is a bold, entertaining, clever book, richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides. Does it achieve its goal, or does it
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cram and twist the world on to a Procrustean bed of one theory, thereby somewhat contradicting its own empirical and pragmatic outlook? I am not sure. I will have to read it again. And again. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member lbeaumont
If you have ever been stuck sitting for a long time next to someone who is as brilliant as he is annoying, you have some idea what reading this book is like. It is almost worth enduring the long-winded and self-indulgent rants while waiting patiently for the next new insight.
The author’s
The author provides formal definitions of fragile and antifragile in terms of non-linear responses to volatility. Fragile systems are harmed more by large changes than small changes. Antifragile systems gain more from changes than they lose. Consider how one stock, a diversified portfolio of stocks, and a stock broker are affected by volatility in the Dow Jones industrial average. A single stock can have a large change in value, much greater than the change in the index, even over a short time frame. A diversified portfolio will be less volatile, with changes similar to the volatility of the index. A stock broker makes money on every sale whether the stock is going up or down. The single stock is fragile, the portfolio robust, and the stock broker is antifragile. This idea leads to the chief ethical rule: “Thou shalt not have antifragility at the expense of the fragility of others”
Taleb cautions us to beware of people who make predictions without having any skin in the game, agents that gain from risks they advise you take, captains that are absent when the ship goes down, executives who enjoy incentives without disincentives, organizations that are too big to fail, complex regulations, noise interpreted as signal, procedures to treat minor medical conditions that expose you to large risks, iatrogenics, wrong beliefs, shifting the burden of evidence, and novelty.
Become stronger by exposing yourself to the acute stresses of natural exercise, routine failures, and everyday grime. Learn from everyday encounters with randomness and risk. Do more and talk less. Invest like a venture capitalist. Seek (free) options that can have large payoffs. Evaluate payoffs rather than truth. Advance via negativa.
The book relies on many quirky or unusual terms, collected into a glossary, including: Fragilista, lecturing birds how to fly, barbell strategy, Ludic fallacy, hormesis, naïve interventionism, turkey illusion, agency problem, the green lumber fallacy, via negativa, and the Lindy effect.
Perhaps someday these ideas will be presented in a well-written book that is half as long and twice as clear.
The author’s
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colleague summarized the book succinctly: “Everything gains or loses from volatility. Fragility is what loses from volatility and uncertainty.” But the book is titled “Antifragile” and seeks to focus on “things that gain from disorder.” Any particular restaurant is fragile; it can easily go out of business as a result of an economic slowdown, a change in tastes, the loss of the chief, and many other circumstances. However, the collection of restaurants in the region is antifragile; as any one restaurant goes out of business it is replaced by a more suitable one and the collection of restaurants becomes better. Evolution works in a similar way—the gene pool improves and endures even as individuals die.The author provides formal definitions of fragile and antifragile in terms of non-linear responses to volatility. Fragile systems are harmed more by large changes than small changes. Antifragile systems gain more from changes than they lose. Consider how one stock, a diversified portfolio of stocks, and a stock broker are affected by volatility in the Dow Jones industrial average. A single stock can have a large change in value, much greater than the change in the index, even over a short time frame. A diversified portfolio will be less volatile, with changes similar to the volatility of the index. A stock broker makes money on every sale whether the stock is going up or down. The single stock is fragile, the portfolio robust, and the stock broker is antifragile. This idea leads to the chief ethical rule: “Thou shalt not have antifragility at the expense of the fragility of others”
Taleb cautions us to beware of people who make predictions without having any skin in the game, agents that gain from risks they advise you take, captains that are absent when the ship goes down, executives who enjoy incentives without disincentives, organizations that are too big to fail, complex regulations, noise interpreted as signal, procedures to treat minor medical conditions that expose you to large risks, iatrogenics, wrong beliefs, shifting the burden of evidence, and novelty.
Become stronger by exposing yourself to the acute stresses of natural exercise, routine failures, and everyday grime. Learn from everyday encounters with randomness and risk. Do more and talk less. Invest like a venture capitalist. Seek (free) options that can have large payoffs. Evaluate payoffs rather than truth. Advance via negativa.
The book relies on many quirky or unusual terms, collected into a glossary, including: Fragilista, lecturing birds how to fly, barbell strategy, Ludic fallacy, hormesis, naïve interventionism, turkey illusion, agency problem, the green lumber fallacy, via negativa, and the Lindy effect.
Perhaps someday these ideas will be presented in a well-written book that is half as long and twice as clear.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jbuskermolen
'Anti-fragility tells us how to take advantage of catastrophic events, it is very much a sequel to The Black Swan it builds on many of the Black Swan's themes.'
In The Black Swan, Taleb explained the existence of high impact rare events beyond the realms of normal expectations. In his new book,
In The Black Swan, Taleb explained the existence of high impact rare events beyond the realms of normal expectations. In his new book,
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Taleb goes much further. He tells us how to live in a world that is unpredictable and chaotic, and how to thrive during moments of disaster. Antifragility is about loving randomness, uncertainty, opacity, adventure and disorder, and benefitting from a variety of shocks. It is a new word because it is a new concept. Many of the greatest breakthroughs in human endeavour come from the trial and error that is part of antifragility. And some of the best systems we know of, including evolution, have antifragility at their heart. Medicine, economics, even politics, could all be improved by embracing it. It is often what really drives innovation and invention. Our failure to realize this has even led to many huge historical misunderstandings about religion and belief. So, how can we take advantage of antifragility? Taleb ranges over ideas and real-life situations, from why debt brings fragility, why if we lose nothing we will gain nothing, and why we should detest the lack of accountability at the heart of capitalism. He shows us that chaos is what makes us human. (source: Bol.com) Show Less
LibraryThing member johnclaydon
This is an insanely crappy book. The author is a self indulgent egomaniac. I found his other books unreadable. This one is worse.
The good news is that there is some organization this time. After an introductory section he applies his big idea to six different areas of application, in six sections.
The good news is that there is some organization this time. After an introductory section he applies his big idea to six different areas of application, in six sections.
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You can read one to see if you find his idea of use. Show Less
LibraryThing member chaosmogony
It took me five months to read, mostly because I didn't want it to end. Once you grasp the elegance of Taleb's thesis -- that everything gains or loses from volatility -- the rest is just a semi-autobiographical collection of aphorisms meditating on the nature of the world and our place in it. I
Taleb's concept of anti-fragility (or convexity) is simple, yet not easily grasped thanks to our default Western way of thinking about things. Taleb's willingness to engage with his critics in his characteristically lively manner makes an otherwise unfortunate (and serious) matter as enjoyable as it can be empowering (or depressing, as you care to look at it).
Not simply worth the read -- this should be mandatory.
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found myself reading it in small chunks, just to remind myself of the at once profound and hilariously true-to-life wisdoms within. Taleb's concept of anti-fragility (or convexity) is simple, yet not easily grasped thanks to our default Western way of thinking about things. Taleb's willingness to engage with his critics in his characteristically lively manner makes an otherwise unfortunate (and serious) matter as enjoyable as it can be empowering (or depressing, as you care to look at it).
Not simply worth the read -- this should be mandatory.
Show Less
LibraryThing member willszal
I just completed “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Nassim gave a strategic introduction to his book, point out how critical receptions would benefit him - so here you go Nassim.
I was very resistant to pickup the book. Someone’d been recommending it to me
But then when my book portfolio freed up, I decided to read it anyways. I was right about the title. The entire book was full of jargon that just seemed kind of paranoid and insider to me. Most of the words I never became familiar with, even though they were repeated many times.
Nassim seems to be onto something, but his culture is so divergent from my own that I had a very hard time finding common context. I only got about twenty percent of his references in the book. The rest came from classics, that were probably perfectly good examples. Except, because I had no familiarity with them, they further confused his points. Nassim points out in the book that, “much of what other people know isn’t worth knowing;” I couldn’t agree more in the choice of his examples.
Nassim’s framing is very imprecise. He uses the word antifragile as the title of fragile. What does it mean? That’s unknown, and undefined. It’s just not fragile. Then, how does he describe this word? As things that gain from disorder. What is disorder? The lack of order. Again, instead of defining the thing in the definition, he repeats what it isn’t. So right from the cover I’m left knowing what he isn’t talking about, but not any more than that.
Eventually, after he talks about the concept for a while, he introduces his triad. First, triad is a technical term, and what he defines as a triad [fragile, robust, antifragile] is actually a spectrum - don’t get mislead by the name. But so with this spectrum idea, I could start to catch his drift. Some things are hurt by volatility. Some things are left untouched. And some things gain from volatility. This is an interesting idea, but could only gain value with application.
Nassim continues for the rest of the book without talking about a single good application of the idea of antifragility. There are a few reasons that this is the case:
1) Antifragility oscillates through scales of a fractal. Say we take a subset of a system - like a politician. Increasing their fragility deceases the fragility of the system that they’re a part of. Nassim doesn’t discuss this interesting dynamic - that it matters where you optimize antifragility.
2) The entire book seems devoid of purpose. Although Nassim says that he’s a religious man, I couldn’t identify how. Is he an environmentalist? Maybe he’s motivated by aesthetics? Or possibly he likes to bask in the oneness of existence? He doesn’t state his motivations in the book, so we’re left with a hollow shell of this theory of antifragility, unsure how it leads to any deeper sense of meaning.
3) I grew up in a culture of antifragility. It’s such a fundamental part of who I am that it took me a while to understand what we was talking about. There are probably thousands of great examples of antifragility, but he doesn’t reference them. This lead us to think that he doesn’t actually live the concept, for if he did, he would have bumped into some of these things.
Antifragility in the real world:
*Gurdjieff: “conscious labor and intentional suffering”
*Christianity: The way of the cross - enlightenment through suffering
*Spirituality in general
*Education: Waldorf, Essential Schools, GaiaU
*Entrepreneurialism
*Calvin and Hobbes: “it builds character”
*Art
*Systems Thinking
*Permaculture
*Chaos Theory
*Resistance
*Radicalization
Nassim does talk some about entrepreneurialism, but he spends more time talking about standing up for the weak, and about why artisans are nice and big corporations aren’t. There isn’t any problem with this, but it doesn’t have to do with antifragility.
As Nassim has a background in finance, I was really looking forward to seeing how he applies the idea of antifragility in designing financial systems, but he never got there.
There’s a point where Nassim correlates size to fragility. Size doesn’t scale with fragility. Yes, if you increase the size a fragile system, it becomes more fragile. But this is the same with antifragile systems. Take gene pools for example - a gene pool with a thousand members will be less antifragile than a gene pool with a million members.
In summary, I think that the concept of antifragility is a good one, but Nassims book doesn’t explain what antifragility is nor how it can be used. Hopefully someone will pickup where he left off and do something meaningful with the concept.
Nassim gave a strategic introduction to his book, point out how critical receptions would benefit him - so here you go Nassim.
I was very resistant to pickup the book. Someone’d been recommending it to me
Show More
for a long time, but I just refused to read it because of the title; antifragile just sounded like a dumb word to me, a cheap form of marketing.But then when my book portfolio freed up, I decided to read it anyways. I was right about the title. The entire book was full of jargon that just seemed kind of paranoid and insider to me. Most of the words I never became familiar with, even though they were repeated many times.
Nassim seems to be onto something, but his culture is so divergent from my own that I had a very hard time finding common context. I only got about twenty percent of his references in the book. The rest came from classics, that were probably perfectly good examples. Except, because I had no familiarity with them, they further confused his points. Nassim points out in the book that, “much of what other people know isn’t worth knowing;” I couldn’t agree more in the choice of his examples.
Nassim’s framing is very imprecise. He uses the word antifragile as the title of fragile. What does it mean? That’s unknown, and undefined. It’s just not fragile. Then, how does he describe this word? As things that gain from disorder. What is disorder? The lack of order. Again, instead of defining the thing in the definition, he repeats what it isn’t. So right from the cover I’m left knowing what he isn’t talking about, but not any more than that.
Eventually, after he talks about the concept for a while, he introduces his triad. First, triad is a technical term, and what he defines as a triad [fragile, robust, antifragile] is actually a spectrum - don’t get mislead by the name. But so with this spectrum idea, I could start to catch his drift. Some things are hurt by volatility. Some things are left untouched. And some things gain from volatility. This is an interesting idea, but could only gain value with application.
Nassim continues for the rest of the book without talking about a single good application of the idea of antifragility. There are a few reasons that this is the case:
1) Antifragility oscillates through scales of a fractal. Say we take a subset of a system - like a politician. Increasing their fragility deceases the fragility of the system that they’re a part of. Nassim doesn’t discuss this interesting dynamic - that it matters where you optimize antifragility.
2) The entire book seems devoid of purpose. Although Nassim says that he’s a religious man, I couldn’t identify how. Is he an environmentalist? Maybe he’s motivated by aesthetics? Or possibly he likes to bask in the oneness of existence? He doesn’t state his motivations in the book, so we’re left with a hollow shell of this theory of antifragility, unsure how it leads to any deeper sense of meaning.
3) I grew up in a culture of antifragility. It’s such a fundamental part of who I am that it took me a while to understand what we was talking about. There are probably thousands of great examples of antifragility, but he doesn’t reference them. This lead us to think that he doesn’t actually live the concept, for if he did, he would have bumped into some of these things.
Antifragility in the real world:
*Gurdjieff: “conscious labor and intentional suffering”
*Christianity: The way of the cross - enlightenment through suffering
*Spirituality in general
*Education: Waldorf, Essential Schools, GaiaU
*Entrepreneurialism
*Calvin and Hobbes: “it builds character”
*Art
*Systems Thinking
*Permaculture
*Chaos Theory
*Resistance
*Radicalization
Nassim does talk some about entrepreneurialism, but he spends more time talking about standing up for the weak, and about why artisans are nice and big corporations aren’t. There isn’t any problem with this, but it doesn’t have to do with antifragility.
As Nassim has a background in finance, I was really looking forward to seeing how he applies the idea of antifragility in designing financial systems, but he never got there.
There’s a point where Nassim correlates size to fragility. Size doesn’t scale with fragility. Yes, if you increase the size a fragile system, it becomes more fragile. But this is the same with antifragile systems. Take gene pools for example - a gene pool with a thousand members will be less antifragile than a gene pool with a million members.
In summary, I think that the concept of antifragility is a good one, but Nassims book doesn’t explain what antifragility is nor how it can be used. Hopefully someone will pickup where he left off and do something meaningful with the concept.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ridgeclub
Pull your kids out of college, throw out your e-book reader, and don't listen to any of the talking heads on television. Nassim Taleb sees value in volatility and takes a stand on many aspects of modern life using references from Socrates and Seneca to drive his points home. Learning from
So conventional thinking, government bailouts, and anyone without a stake in the outcome will not help one consider the black swan events that can threaten survival. Besides the philosopher references, Mr. Taleb uses a street-smart contemporary called Fat Tony to explore volatility management in a variety of disciplines. Despite a few diversionary flights (for some of us, e-books and physical books can co-exist without threatening the grand order of things) the book offers interesting insight about risk management that is very pertinent today.
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individual tragedies (the Titanic sinking or an airline crash) results in an enhanced safety level for future travelers. Systems that can learn are more than robust: they are antifragile.So conventional thinking, government bailouts, and anyone without a stake in the outcome will not help one consider the black swan events that can threaten survival. Besides the philosopher references, Mr. Taleb uses a street-smart contemporary called Fat Tony to explore volatility management in a variety of disciplines. Despite a few diversionary flights (for some of us, e-books and physical books can co-exist without threatening the grand order of things) the book offers interesting insight about risk management that is very pertinent today.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RandyStafford
This is not an investment guide.
This is not a fitness guide.
This is not a diet guide.
This is not a screed against the dismal science.
This is not a call for fundamental economic and political change.
This is not an autobiography.
This is, as Taleb himself has called it, a work of philosophy which
We rely, he argues, too much on the illusion of knowledge, too much on false precision, ignorantly intervene, centralize our decisions, try futilely to avoid random risk. Taleb practices "naturalistic risk management" - ways of minimizing bad risk and benefiting from the "Extended Disorder Family": uncertainty, variability, imperfect knowledge, chaos, volatility, time, the unknown, randomness, error, and stressors". Weak things are hurt by disorder; robust things are unchanged, and, as the title indicates, Taleb's coinage "antifragile" designates those things benefitting from disorder.
Taleb's book has whole charts placing everything from types of literature to ways of thinking to stress to economic systems to medicine to errors into the appropriate column of this Central Triad of reaction to disorder. He may be, as he says, given to "angry, dismissive, and irascible" prose, but there is a missionary zeal behind this work. Before thanking the reader at the conclusion for reading the book, he embraces disorder as not only potentially life altering in a good way but the key to life's zest, accomplishment, and ethics. Taleb, as he often notes, has plenty of "F*** you" money by applying his ideas successfully in the world of finance, so money is not the primary motive for this book. He so wants you to be exposed to these ideas that he uses a barrage of ideas to get his points home. There is an opening laying out important concepts of the book and providing a roadmap to the rest of the book. There is a glossary. There is a bibliography. There's a ten page appendix graphically summarizing the book. There is a highly technical appendix with mathematical arguments. Taleb promises a free e-book with the most elaborate supporting technical documents and arguments. There are quotes from Roman and Greek and Arab classics. There are historical anecdotes. There are personal anecdotes - usually negatively reflecting on famous economists - from Taleb's life. There are the dialogues between Nero, a fictionalized version of Taleb, and Fat Tony. The latter is the opposite of Taleb, unintellectual and inarticulate but illustrative of Taleb's caution that unintelligible in not unintelligent and many facts are irrelevant in successfully making money off suckers - the speciality of Nero and Fat Tony.
Taleb on investment: a barbell strategy of investing mostly in safe options with ten percent in highly risky - but potentially highly profitable - stock.
Taleb on fitness: your body probably doesn't benefit most from regular, low-grade exercise but, rather, from random, high output, high stress exercise. He talks about his own experience in bulking up after a bodyguard (hired after Taleb's public and successful predictions of 2008's financial crisis resulted in death threats) introduced him to the idea of simply trying short workouts where he just tries to best his personal record of weight lifted.
Taleb on health: your body probably doesn't like regular feeding or eating things your ancestors didn't eat. It needs the stress of deprivation occasionally.
Taleb on economics: intervention by the "Soviet-Harvard" school of economists causes a great deal of havoc. There is a tyranny of talkers who never pay the price for their bad advice - unlike the old days when bankers in charge of failed institutions were executed.
Taleb on social and political change: we need to force politicians and leaders to put "skin in the game" whether it's making war or running a company. The "principal-agent problem" was solved in the old tradition of the captain going down with his ship, the Roman engineer being forced to camp out under the bridge he built. The modern economic elite too often socialize loses and privatize profits. Limited-liability corporations should be curtailed, corporate officers' personal assets be placed at risk in certain circumstances. Globalization is economic efficiency, but efficiency is the enemy of reliability. We rely too much on the false precision of models. Massive 19th Century building projects were often completed much closer to schedule than modern ones because there was not the illusion of proper planning facilitated by computers crunching metrics.
I don't take Taleb as an absolute guru. I disagree with him somewhat on the harm stemming from large corporations though I would certainly support the notion that, in effect, "too big to fail" is too big to be allowed to exist. On a more minor level, I don't agree with his opinions on science fiction's lack of literary worth -- which partly stems from Taleb's justified suspicion of "neomania" - or his hostility to private gun ownership in America. But I do think this and his [[ASIN:081297381X The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"]]are important reminders of our systematic mental fallibilities and the inescapable role of randomness in the world. And there is a welcome humanity - as well as a modified application of the stoicism of Senca to the modern world - in Taleb's efforts to acknowledge, accept, and use the chaos around us.
In short, I do consider this a modern work of wisdom.
This is not a fitness guide.
This is not a diet guide.
This is not a screed against the dismal science.
This is not a call for fundamental economic and political change.
This is not an autobiography.
This is, as Taleb himself has called it, a work of philosophy which
Show More
touches on all of the above. I'd also call it a field guide to understanding important parts of the natural and social worlds. It finds much inspiration in the ancient texts of the Mediterranean. Taleb says "moderns have severe handicaps when it comes to wisdom".We rely, he argues, too much on the illusion of knowledge, too much on false precision, ignorantly intervene, centralize our decisions, try futilely to avoid random risk. Taleb practices "naturalistic risk management" - ways of minimizing bad risk and benefiting from the "Extended Disorder Family": uncertainty, variability, imperfect knowledge, chaos, volatility, time, the unknown, randomness, error, and stressors". Weak things are hurt by disorder; robust things are unchanged, and, as the title indicates, Taleb's coinage "antifragile" designates those things benefitting from disorder.
Taleb's book has whole charts placing everything from types of literature to ways of thinking to stress to economic systems to medicine to errors into the appropriate column of this Central Triad of reaction to disorder. He may be, as he says, given to "angry, dismissive, and irascible" prose, but there is a missionary zeal behind this work. Before thanking the reader at the conclusion for reading the book, he embraces disorder as not only potentially life altering in a good way but the key to life's zest, accomplishment, and ethics. Taleb, as he often notes, has plenty of "F*** you" money by applying his ideas successfully in the world of finance, so money is not the primary motive for this book. He so wants you to be exposed to these ideas that he uses a barrage of ideas to get his points home. There is an opening laying out important concepts of the book and providing a roadmap to the rest of the book. There is a glossary. There is a bibliography. There's a ten page appendix graphically summarizing the book. There is a highly technical appendix with mathematical arguments. Taleb promises a free e-book with the most elaborate supporting technical documents and arguments. There are quotes from Roman and Greek and Arab classics. There are historical anecdotes. There are personal anecdotes - usually negatively reflecting on famous economists - from Taleb's life. There are the dialogues between Nero, a fictionalized version of Taleb, and Fat Tony. The latter is the opposite of Taleb, unintellectual and inarticulate but illustrative of Taleb's caution that unintelligible in not unintelligent and many facts are irrelevant in successfully making money off suckers - the speciality of Nero and Fat Tony.
Taleb on investment: a barbell strategy of investing mostly in safe options with ten percent in highly risky - but potentially highly profitable - stock.
Taleb on fitness: your body probably doesn't benefit most from regular, low-grade exercise but, rather, from random, high output, high stress exercise. He talks about his own experience in bulking up after a bodyguard (hired after Taleb's public and successful predictions of 2008's financial crisis resulted in death threats) introduced him to the idea of simply trying short workouts where he just tries to best his personal record of weight lifted.
Taleb on health: your body probably doesn't like regular feeding or eating things your ancestors didn't eat. It needs the stress of deprivation occasionally.
Taleb on economics: intervention by the "Soviet-Harvard" school of economists causes a great deal of havoc. There is a tyranny of talkers who never pay the price for their bad advice - unlike the old days when bankers in charge of failed institutions were executed.
Taleb on social and political change: we need to force politicians and leaders to put "skin in the game" whether it's making war or running a company. The "principal-agent problem" was solved in the old tradition of the captain going down with his ship, the Roman engineer being forced to camp out under the bridge he built. The modern economic elite too often socialize loses and privatize profits. Limited-liability corporations should be curtailed, corporate officers' personal assets be placed at risk in certain circumstances. Globalization is economic efficiency, but efficiency is the enemy of reliability. We rely too much on the false precision of models. Massive 19th Century building projects were often completed much closer to schedule than modern ones because there was not the illusion of proper planning facilitated by computers crunching metrics.
I don't take Taleb as an absolute guru. I disagree with him somewhat on the harm stemming from large corporations though I would certainly support the notion that, in effect, "too big to fail" is too big to be allowed to exist. On a more minor level, I don't agree with his opinions on science fiction's lack of literary worth -- which partly stems from Taleb's justified suspicion of "neomania" - or his hostility to private gun ownership in America. But I do think this and his [[ASIN:081297381X The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"]]are important reminders of our systematic mental fallibilities and the inescapable role of randomness in the world. And there is a welcome humanity - as well as a modified application of the stoicism of Senca to the modern world - in Taleb's efforts to acknowledge, accept, and use the chaos around us.
In short, I do consider this a modern work of wisdom.
Show Less
LibraryThing member spyrunner
Taleb's latest book 'Antifragile' is based on the idea that some things increase from stress, such as muscles. He identifies many different types mostly dealing with finances and business. For example, venture capital is antifragile because the rewards can be huge if the idea and company are
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successful. I found portions of the book difficult to get through, rereading the occasional paragraphs. Often he will mention ideas that will come later in the book, and frequently using terms he defined elsewhere. Every couple of pages he goes off on tangents that were quite entertaining. As he is well read, devoting 30 hours a week to reading, and comes from a unique background (a Christian from the middle east) I found his anecdotes most interesting. He suggests how to read (switch books if you get bored), states his views on exercise (spend less time in the gym by lifting large weights) and advises to avoid oranges (they are bred for their sweetness). About two-thirds through the book he states that he would have been diagnosed with ADHD if he were back in school in America. I was thinking the same thing. It seemed like he writes what he feels like writing about, and when he gets bored he switches topic. I felt like I was listening to a grandfather espousing his world view and recounting tales of his life instead of reading an academic book on Economics. Show Less
LibraryThing member halsteadt
The latest offering from Taleb is just what you would expect. You ride along with his stream of consciousness style as he attempts to weave personal stories, classical mythology and sometimes even genuine insight into the book. He claims that Antifragile is the manifesto of his philosophy and
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worldview that he previously explored in Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. Taleb's main point about volatility and how it affects certain things differently is an interesting read for a good portion of the book. As Taleb starts painting with a bigger and bigger brush, applying his philosophy to a wide range of topics he starts to lose the reader. An healthy editing of the work would have left me with less mixed feelings about the topic and author. Taleb repeats (and repeats) his main proclamation about volatility until the horse is very much dead. His ego being fully on display and his quirks of writing are at times are enjoyable for the reader but it does detract from the message. You end up willing to follow Taleb, wanting to hear more about his proclamations of antifragility yet unwilling to jump off the cliff of logic with him at the end. Show Less
LibraryThing member jimocracy
The author somehow is able to pull off sounding like an arrogant prick and simultaneously like an insecure whiner. The rare examples when the author wrote something that was true or significant do not offset the hundred of pages of unsubstantiated assertions and purely fabricated nonsense.
LibraryThing member debnance
I've been reading this book, Antifragile, for almost four weeks. I call it reading. I've turned all the pages. I've read all the words. That's reading, right?
Or is it?
I started off pretty well, somehow managing to get my brain around the whole idea of antifragile, a word the author, Nassim Nicholas
Taleb gives us lots of great examples of things that are antifragile: "...evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance...even our own existence as a species on this planet."
I'm high-five-ing him, right and left...love this idea of antifragile, Taleb.
That was the Prologue, however. Round about the second or third page of Chapter 1, I find that I'm reading along, with no idea what Mr. Taleb is explaining. He tries, he really does, and now and then I read a paragraph and think I'm back on the highway. The Soviet-Harvard Department of Ornithology, for example. (How well do I know that department, the people who lecture to birds about proper techniques for flying, observe and write reports about the birds' flying abilities, and then seek funding to ensure that the lectures will continue!) But, soon I'm back driving in the dark again.
I don't know if I really read this book. Can I add it to my 2013 Book Log? Does it count? Please don't ask me to summarize it or outline it or (heaven forbid!) don't test me on it.
But if I didn't really read it, why did I like it so much? And why can't I stop thinking about it?
Maybe what I did when I read Antifragile was antireading. Maybe antireading is the kind of reading where you turn the pages and read the words, but understand only a smidgen of what's there, and then you think about it for weeks, and come back to the book again and again, and maybe try to reread it, and it tweaks your map about this life, even through you really didn't understand much of what you read to begin with.
Maybe antireading is the best kind of reading of all.
Or is it?
I started off pretty well, somehow managing to get my brain around the whole idea of antifragile, a word the author, Nassim Nicholas
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Taleb, admits he made up. There is no real word in English that properly names this idea. Everyone understands the idea of fragile, something that is destroyed when stressed. But the opposite of fragile is more than just something that survives difficulties. Antifragility, Taleb tells us, is the idea of a phenomenon that goes beyond mere resilience; antifragility is the idea of something that actually improves with difficulties and uncertainty.Taleb gives us lots of great examples of things that are antifragile: "...evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance...even our own existence as a species on this planet."
I'm high-five-ing him, right and left...love this idea of antifragile, Taleb.
That was the Prologue, however. Round about the second or third page of Chapter 1, I find that I'm reading along, with no idea what Mr. Taleb is explaining. He tries, he really does, and now and then I read a paragraph and think I'm back on the highway. The Soviet-Harvard Department of Ornithology, for example. (How well do I know that department, the people who lecture to birds about proper techniques for flying, observe and write reports about the birds' flying abilities, and then seek funding to ensure that the lectures will continue!) But, soon I'm back driving in the dark again.
I don't know if I really read this book. Can I add it to my 2013 Book Log? Does it count? Please don't ask me to summarize it or outline it or (heaven forbid!) don't test me on it.
But if I didn't really read it, why did I like it so much? And why can't I stop thinking about it?
Maybe what I did when I read Antifragile was antireading. Maybe antireading is the kind of reading where you turn the pages and read the words, but understand only a smidgen of what's there, and then you think about it for weeks, and come back to the book again and again, and maybe try to reread it, and it tweaks your map about this life, even through you really didn't understand much of what you read to begin with.
Maybe antireading is the best kind of reading of all.
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LibraryThing member vpfluke
This is a wide-ranging book. It is not a systematic analysis of factors affecting economics or just life in general. But, it represents a philosophy of we can live with uncertainty and randomness and not be in a state of shock. Fragility likes quiet and order, but is only part of the real world.
I can relat to some of this. Many years ago, was trying to figure out social and economic factors that has led to some precipitous declines in public transit ridership since World War II. When I compared data from the 1970 census on means of transportation to work to that of the 1960 census, only one metropolitan area in the U.S. had an incrase in the proportion of people using public transportation. That was Las Vegas, which had grown into a real city in the intervening ten years, and it became truly meaningful to ride buses up and down the Strip.
I began to realize that non-linearity was present in my data, and that catastrophe (think, Rene Thom) also contributed. I did not have computers of any consequence in the mid-1970's when I was thinking about these kinds of things. But now we have people like Nassim Taleb who is trying to push us into a different way of thinking about disorder and risk.
Taleb puts many stories into his book, so it is not at all dry. Sometimes, in his attempt to be far-reaching, some concepts get a little lost. My review did not have an index, and I found I wanted to flip around the book in some kind of organized randomness to follow some of Taleb's thoughts. I then waited until I could check out another copy of this book from my local library, so I could get a fuller appreciation of "Antifragile".
Taleb has a chapter named, The Cat and the Washing Machine. His point is that many presumably man-made activities, they began to act more like cats, than washing machines. Tha is, they take on a life of their own. We had a cat that would make surprise jumps into the dryer or washing machine, so I was wishing he played out more with this metaphor. I was hoping that the index might give me a pointer to further information before I got there by a linear reading of the book. But cats and washing machines are not mentioned in the index. And I had to think of what Taleb is doing: building an argument, not by deduction, and by his sloppier but more poignant inductive method.
So, you can read "at" this book, and get benefits from it.
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The concept of fragility speaks to a volatile world, where we cannnot linearly project what may be coming or even what comes next. I can relat to some of this. Many years ago, was trying to figure out social and economic factors that has led to some precipitous declines in public transit ridership since World War II. When I compared data from the 1970 census on means of transportation to work to that of the 1960 census, only one metropolitan area in the U.S. had an incrase in the proportion of people using public transportation. That was Las Vegas, which had grown into a real city in the intervening ten years, and it became truly meaningful to ride buses up and down the Strip.
I began to realize that non-linearity was present in my data, and that catastrophe (think, Rene Thom) also contributed. I did not have computers of any consequence in the mid-1970's when I was thinking about these kinds of things. But now we have people like Nassim Taleb who is trying to push us into a different way of thinking about disorder and risk.
Taleb puts many stories into his book, so it is not at all dry. Sometimes, in his attempt to be far-reaching, some concepts get a little lost. My review did not have an index, and I found I wanted to flip around the book in some kind of organized randomness to follow some of Taleb's thoughts. I then waited until I could check out another copy of this book from my local library, so I could get a fuller appreciation of "Antifragile".
Taleb has a chapter named, The Cat and the Washing Machine. His point is that many presumably man-made activities, they began to act more like cats, than washing machines. Tha is, they take on a life of their own. We had a cat that would make surprise jumps into the dryer or washing machine, so I was wishing he played out more with this metaphor. I was hoping that the index might give me a pointer to further information before I got there by a linear reading of the book. But cats and washing machines are not mentioned in the index. And I had to think of what Taleb is doing: building an argument, not by deduction, and by his sloppier but more poignant inductive method.
So, you can read "at" this book, and get benefits from it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member fconte
Excellent book. Requires hard thinking and facing up to the truth.
LibraryThing member jpsnow
Taleb is a tail event of his own, a challenge to the accepted methodologies using prediction through point estimates and reliance on squares-based statistics as input to linear models. The right way to avoid bigger crises - financial and otherwise - is to encourage systems that benefit from
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volatility and feedback mechanisms. For example, "Depriving political (and other) systems of volatility harms them, causing eventually greater volatility of the cascading type" (p. 81). Along the way, he tears apart major theories in economics and finance, introduces some street-smart characters who really run the world, and sketches out an aura around himself that the reader might like and might not. In either case, Taleb won't care; he would much rather the reader accept his ideas for the sake of us all. Show Less
LibraryThing member pw0327
When you first start reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb, you wonder whether he is some kind of a mad man, or at least one of these fragilista bullshitter whose stories populates this book. Then you realize that is is just how he writes.
This is the latest tome in his Incerto series, all of them
This is a summation of the Incerto series, he has explained many of the phenomenon in the previous books, in spades, but this is the grand summation as well as the presentation of his idea of antifragility. I am not going to go into a quick summary of the idea in a book review. It would be inadequate as well as being incredibly disrespectful to the author. His ideas are kind of out there but they are intriguing and they definitely gets you to think, which afterall is why why read ponderous tomes on how to deal with events, both economic and political. Mr. Taleb has literally opened up his thoughts to us and he has invited us into his very unique and fascinating world and how he arrived at the ideas and I for one love the insight. His writing style will put some off from writing. I read his words in the voice of my PHD adviser: imperious, a touch arrogant, definitely self confident, and with a sense of bemused detachment. It was the perfect tone.
This is the latest tome in his Incerto series, all of them
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deserving of being read slowly and carefully, even though he does have a tendency to repeat his points somewhat, not as bad as most business books. The others do it to fill pages because they are lacking in substance, Taleb does it because he wants his points to get across. This is a summation of the Incerto series, he has explained many of the phenomenon in the previous books, in spades, but this is the grand summation as well as the presentation of his idea of antifragility. I am not going to go into a quick summary of the idea in a book review. It would be inadequate as well as being incredibly disrespectful to the author. His ideas are kind of out there but they are intriguing and they definitely gets you to think, which afterall is why why read ponderous tomes on how to deal with events, both economic and political. Mr. Taleb has literally opened up his thoughts to us and he has invited us into his very unique and fascinating world and how he arrived at the ideas and I for one love the insight. His writing style will put some off from writing. I read his words in the voice of my PHD adviser: imperious, a touch arrogant, definitely self confident, and with a sense of bemused detachment. It was the perfect tone.
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LibraryThing member tlockney
Not sure I can distill my thoughts on this one without more time and perhaps a revisit to key parts. Taleb's central idea is certainly intriguing and seems cohesive and perhaps even correct, but his presentation, while entertaining, makes it difficult to judge on its own merits. Nonetheless, I'd
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highly recommend reading this one. Just know that you may waffle between loving and hating it at various points. Show Less
LibraryThing member zimbawilson
While the ideas presented in this book are extremely interesting Taleb's narcissistic style rubbed me the wrong way. Coupled with the fact that the author has come up with so many new terms that he needs (and has)a glossary in the back makes this a difficult read for the average person. The idea of
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people, business etc actually benefitting and improving from volatility is fascinating and Taleb makes a great case for it. The idea of caloric restriction extending lifespan has been discussed elsewhere but is a good example and Taleb does well to bring many of these ideas together. Having said that, I was very distracted by all the 'made up' terms and personal stories that Taleb seemed so willing to veer into. As a previous reviewer mentioned, the book needed to be clearer and certainly condensed. Show Less
LibraryThing member haig51
Extreme empirical skeptic Nassim Taleb strikes again, but this time he offers us some solutions to go along with his ranting. In this latest installment of his series of books critiquing modernity's mismanagement of risk, Taleb puts forth his concept of antifragility, those things that not just
The key to antifragile systems, according to Taleb, is convexity. Convex functions are asymmetric in that they limit the downsides but keep open the upsides, so that with high volatility the system can actually reap high rewards and benefit from variability. Convex systems thrive in Extremistan Concave functions are the opposite, they can thrive in Mediocristan, but will blow up in Extremistan where black swans come along and negate any and all gains previously accrued. Concavity is not sustainable, convexity is. The exemplar of convexity is optionality. Taleb uses an anecdote about the pre-socratic philosopher Thales as an example of optionality. Thales leased olive presses using an option contract, so that he has the right, but not the obligation, to use them. If the season is bountiful, he will use his right and profit, if the season turns out to be bad, he has the option to not lease the presses and avoid incurring any losses. Optionality turns a win-lose situation into a win-break even situation, if things work out you win, if they don't you break even or suffer minimal inconvenience. The downside is limited, the upside is unlimited. This is the essence of antifragility.
Taleb describes many other concepts that are synergistic with antifragility in order to derive heuristics to abide by. The Lindy effect gives us a heuristic to expect that older technologies and ideas will last longer than newer ones (on average). Iatrogenics gives us a heuristic to first do no harm by removing harmful things from systems instead of adding on supposedly beneficial things to them. The green lumber fallacy gives us a heuristic to do what works based on cost/benefit analysis in practice without erroneously theorizing why they work and coming up with postdictive fantasies. The heuristic 'small is beautiful' gives us a bias for smaller and more decentralized systems compared with the fragility of bigger and more centralized ones. Finally, the 'skin in the game' heuristic gives a solution to the agency problem by making sure those that take risks that can harm others are personally liable when things go wrong. Taleb uses examples from many domains and colorful anecdotes throughout history to defend these heuristics and get these points across.
I think the overall message of the book is incredibly important and insightful, but my biggest criticism of Taleb is his extreme discounting of the possibility to actually understand complex systems. I agree that there is an aspect of irreducible uncertainty to such systems that cannot be overcome, but there are still ways to use our advancing knowledge of complex-adaptive systems to turn black swans into gray swans (to use Taleb's own idea from his book The Black Swan). I understand that Taleb's main concern is for things to not blow up and for people to first just do things that work in practice, but he is too conservative and skeptical with his epistemological approach. Maybe it is just hyperbolic rhetoric to hammer in his ideas that would otherwise not get the attention they deserve, which is fine, but I'd prefer a middle ground where Taleb's ideas can inform and improve our scientific processes, preserving our ability to create theoretical models of the world instead of abandoning it outright.
Nassim Taleb is polarizing, his ideas doubly so, but I find myself on his side more often than not and recommend this book highly.
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resist being damaged from disorder but actually gain from it. Drawing inspiration from nature, Taleb tells us that our modern social edifices have become too mechanistic and must become like the organisms evolution has shaped through bricolage trial and error. While clockwork mechanisms operate in a narrow domain and break if taken outside their comfort zone, organic complex-adaptive systems become stronger when faced with stressors. He wants us to stop placing so much emphasis on brittle theoretical knowledge which seems to work in simple isolated conditions divorced from messy reality but fail on contact with the Extremistan conditions of the real world. Instead of theory, we need to emphasize phenomenology, the actual doing of things and seeing what works, making decisions not on the platonic ideas of true/false or right/wrong but on the cost-benefit analysis of real world results.The key to antifragile systems, according to Taleb, is convexity. Convex functions are asymmetric in that they limit the downsides but keep open the upsides, so that with high volatility the system can actually reap high rewards and benefit from variability. Convex systems thrive in Extremistan Concave functions are the opposite, they can thrive in Mediocristan, but will blow up in Extremistan where black swans come along and negate any and all gains previously accrued. Concavity is not sustainable, convexity is. The exemplar of convexity is optionality. Taleb uses an anecdote about the pre-socratic philosopher Thales as an example of optionality. Thales leased olive presses using an option contract, so that he has the right, but not the obligation, to use them. If the season is bountiful, he will use his right and profit, if the season turns out to be bad, he has the option to not lease the presses and avoid incurring any losses. Optionality turns a win-lose situation into a win-break even situation, if things work out you win, if they don't you break even or suffer minimal inconvenience. The downside is limited, the upside is unlimited. This is the essence of antifragility.
Taleb describes many other concepts that are synergistic with antifragility in order to derive heuristics to abide by. The Lindy effect gives us a heuristic to expect that older technologies and ideas will last longer than newer ones (on average). Iatrogenics gives us a heuristic to first do no harm by removing harmful things from systems instead of adding on supposedly beneficial things to them. The green lumber fallacy gives us a heuristic to do what works based on cost/benefit analysis in practice without erroneously theorizing why they work and coming up with postdictive fantasies. The heuristic 'small is beautiful' gives us a bias for smaller and more decentralized systems compared with the fragility of bigger and more centralized ones. Finally, the 'skin in the game' heuristic gives a solution to the agency problem by making sure those that take risks that can harm others are personally liable when things go wrong. Taleb uses examples from many domains and colorful anecdotes throughout history to defend these heuristics and get these points across.
I think the overall message of the book is incredibly important and insightful, but my biggest criticism of Taleb is his extreme discounting of the possibility to actually understand complex systems. I agree that there is an aspect of irreducible uncertainty to such systems that cannot be overcome, but there are still ways to use our advancing knowledge of complex-adaptive systems to turn black swans into gray swans (to use Taleb's own idea from his book The Black Swan). I understand that Taleb's main concern is for things to not blow up and for people to first just do things that work in practice, but he is too conservative and skeptical with his epistemological approach. Maybe it is just hyperbolic rhetoric to hammer in his ideas that would otherwise not get the attention they deserve, which is fine, but I'd prefer a middle ground where Taleb's ideas can inform and improve our scientific processes, preserving our ability to create theoretical models of the world instead of abandoning it outright.
Nassim Taleb is polarizing, his ideas doubly so, but I find myself on his side more often than not and recommend this book highly.
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LibraryThing member chriszodrow
a hoot of a read. loved it.
LibraryThing member sdmouton
Nassim Nicholas Taleb comes off as an asshole. Much of what he asserts as new or original material is simply redefining concepts like resilience or robustness as slightly less than I had learned them, although that may have more to do with my time spent in social work. Nevertheless, there are some
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decent points in this book. I think I'd give Taleb's work about as much shrift as Simon Sinek's, and in much the same way - read (or watch) a summary and you'll probably come away as enlightened as you would having mauled the corpus entire. Show Less
LibraryThing member JavierRiestra
Awesome Book! Provides an incredibly accurate view of the world in which we live. Must reading for Everyone.
LibraryThing member tgraettinger
This book (and its author) is an enigma to me. I can't say whether I loved it or hated it, because it was really some of each. Sometimes the tone was incredibly condescending, and at other times subdued, open and conciliatory. Sometime the content was very opaque to me, and other times it was
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clear. It could be an uncomfortable read at times, but that may be the book's greatest contribution. There's a lot here for me to digest and reflect upon, and that may be what tips the balance in its favor. It probably requires multiple readings to really comprehend the message(s). Show Less
LibraryThing member Daniel.Estes
Let me start by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with the concept and practice of antifragility. I think it's too important of an idea to let get swept aside in our modern era of globalization.
But this idea needs a better messenger. The author writes like he has a chip on his shoulder, like he's
But this idea needs a better messenger. The author writes like he has a chip on his shoulder, like he's
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having a ongoing argument with his peers and this book is his side of the story. The writing feels like he's trying to prove more than his point. I don't know. Maybe there's a language and/or cultural barrier. I know this author wrote Fooled By Randomness and the immensely popular Black Swan, but apart from that I don't anything about Nassim Nicholas Taleb. There might be more to the story. Show Less
LibraryThing member teunduynstee
Overall verdict: this could have been so much better
Good: Taleb presents a few original (for me) ideas that are worth pondering, specifically the central idea of anti-fragility. He also tries to follow up on the implications of this idea in several fields. He is not afraid of taking unpopular
Meh: it feels that Taleb skips some parts of the discussion. Like what it would mean for society if everyone behaves anti-fragile: he does point out that free-market-capitalism as a system is anti-fragile although (because) the individual players are fragile (can go bust, leaving the stronger players in the field). So higher aggregation levels seem to have opposite values of (anti)fragility. But Taleb doesn't like to do systems-thinking. It is too complex, making any result uncertain, hence fragile. But I think we all have an intuition that if all companies would behave in a more anti-fragile way, it would have implications on society as a whole.
Bad: the style of writing and structure of the book are really not great. Taleb is clearly very content with his own persona , but has a strong need to spend half of the book telling us about that. He has a rather low opinion about many professions, among which copy-editors. Mr. Taleb feels that they are stupid comma-pushers that will always have something to nag about his work of genius. He jokes about sending a text to multiple copy editors in sequence that will always make the same number of suggestions, sometimes reverting a change of a predecessor. While that may all be true, this book would have benefitted a lot from a good copy-editor. It is repetitive, refers to things that are introduced only later. Many concepts and persons are (I assume/hope) introduced in earlier books, but never explained. I also think that sending your text to several copy-editors (and deciding for yourself if their suggestions make sense) would be very anti-fragile.
The style is very polemic, full of ad hominems and name calling to all kinds of people that are irrelevant for the narrative, but the author has apparently some bone to pick with. He also seems very eager to write strong language and then blank out the fucks to f*s. Why on earth is that? It seems very childish to use this language in a serious work and even more so to self-censor them.
Last quip: the author loves introducing new words.This can work well when referring to a subtle concept and I think that "anti-fragile" is a good one. But the author introduces a new made-up term every 10 pages. Often using and existing word with a different meaning to mean something else in his text. Words like concave, convex, non-linear, agency are given related, but different meanings that have confused me to the end. In the appendices, there is a glossary of 8 pages explaining all these terms, mostly neologisms. Please stop doing this. If you must, introduce a new term for one, two, maybe three concepts and for the rest: think of the proper English word.
Good: Taleb presents a few original (for me) ideas that are worth pondering, specifically the central idea of anti-fragility. He also tries to follow up on the implications of this idea in several fields. He is not afraid of taking unpopular
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positions (or rather: he loves to), which makes you rethink those matters as a reader. In general, this is why I read: to be forced into new perspectives and widen my views. Turns out that anti-fragility is very much related to conservatism (of the Edmund Burke kind) and breeds a strong suspicion of large organisations (universities, corporations, states, soviets). Meh: it feels that Taleb skips some parts of the discussion. Like what it would mean for society if everyone behaves anti-fragile: he does point out that free-market-capitalism as a system is anti-fragile although (because) the individual players are fragile (can go bust, leaving the stronger players in the field). So higher aggregation levels seem to have opposite values of (anti)fragility. But Taleb doesn't like to do systems-thinking. It is too complex, making any result uncertain, hence fragile. But I think we all have an intuition that if all companies would behave in a more anti-fragile way, it would have implications on society as a whole.
Bad: the style of writing and structure of the book are really not great. Taleb is clearly very content with his own persona , but has a strong need to spend half of the book telling us about that. He has a rather low opinion about many professions, among which copy-editors. Mr. Taleb feels that they are stupid comma-pushers that will always have something to nag about his work of genius. He jokes about sending a text to multiple copy editors in sequence that will always make the same number of suggestions, sometimes reverting a change of a predecessor. While that may all be true, this book would have benefitted a lot from a good copy-editor. It is repetitive, refers to things that are introduced only later. Many concepts and persons are (I assume/hope) introduced in earlier books, but never explained. I also think that sending your text to several copy-editors (and deciding for yourself if their suggestions make sense) would be very anti-fragile.
The style is very polemic, full of ad hominems and name calling to all kinds of people that are irrelevant for the narrative, but the author has apparently some bone to pick with. He also seems very eager to write strong language and then blank out the fucks to f*s. Why on earth is that? It seems very childish to use this language in a serious work and even more so to self-censor them.
Last quip: the author loves introducing new words.This can work well when referring to a subtle concept and I think that "anti-fragile" is a good one. But the author introduces a new made-up term every 10 pages. Often using and existing word with a different meaning to mean something else in his text. Words like concave, convex, non-linear, agency are given related, but different meanings that have confused me to the end. In the appendices, there is a glossary of 8 pages explaining all these terms, mostly neologisms. Please stop doing this. If you must, introduce a new term for one, two, maybe three concepts and for the rest: think of the proper English word.
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LibraryThing member RajivC
On the whole, I do like the book. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has made some interesting points through the course of the book. It is clear, and he has stated this, a follow up to his earlier books.
The concept of someone, or something, being “Antifragile” is not an easy one to grasp. Is this concept
There is one problem with the book, and it is this: Nassim makes the reader wade through paragraphs of verbiage before he gets to the point.
Nassim comes alive towards the end of the book when he unleashes his poisoned quill on the pharmaceutical industry, the corporate world, and some people whom he seems to dislike. I enjoyed these last few chapters immensely. I do not, however, want to have a conversation with him. He is brilliant. This much is clear from the book. However, I get the impression that he does not value too many thoughts and opinions outside of his own.
The concept of someone, or something, being “Antifragile” is not an easy one to grasp. Is this concept
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beyond ‘robustness,’ as the author has stated? Or, is it the property, or ability, to be beyond shock – to be able to handle random fluctuations that exceed rational expectations. There is one problem with the book, and it is this: Nassim makes the reader wade through paragraphs of verbiage before he gets to the point.
Nassim comes alive towards the end of the book when he unleashes his poisoned quill on the pharmaceutical industry, the corporate world, and some people whom he seems to dislike. I enjoyed these last few chapters immensely. I do not, however, want to have a conversation with him. He is brilliant. This much is clear from the book. However, I get the impression that he does not value too many thoughts and opinions outside of his own.
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Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2012
Physical description
8.02 inches
ISBN
0812979680 / 9780812979688