∎ Read Gratis Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder Incerto Nassim Nicholas Taleb 9781400067824 Books

Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder Incerto Nassim Nicholas Taleb 9781400067824 Books

Download As PDF : Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder Incerto Nassim Nicholas Taleb 9781400067824 Books

Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder Incerto Nassim Nicholas Taleb 9781400067824 Books

Taleb's thesis is

"Everything gains or loses from volatility. Fragility is what loses from volatility
and uncertainty. "

Voltatility is also taken to mean randomness/uncertainty in certain cases.

He maps a spectrum:

Fragile to Robust to AntiFragile.

Fragile things break with volatility and stressors.
Robust things don't lose or gain. (But over a long time their robustness may erode).
Antifragile things gain with volatility.

Fragile things are concave. Concave meaning limited upside massive downside. Think paying for parking verses recieving a ticket.
Antifragile things are convex. Convex meaning limited downside massive upside. Think lottery ticket.

Given the condition of his theory, he argues that our society is becoming more fragile. And the main reason is due to accountability (i'm oversimplifying theres a lot more in between). For example, he says that writers, media pundits, academics, bankers and wall st types get the upside while the society gets the downside. An example is the financial crisis. The ceo's get the upside even if they get fired, they get millions and society has to bail them out. Another example is media pundits, who can be absolutely wrong, but still be on the air because its easy for people to forget. But there information may misinform people. The media analyst gets the upside of being controversial. The public gets the downside of bad knowledge.

He also suggests that our ancestors knew the dire conseuqnces of the agent/principal problem. So how did they deal with it? Hannurabi, eye for and eye. If you make a bridge you have to live under it. People nowadays can blow things up and not have to deal with the consequences. They can spew lies and misinform people and get away with it and become famous. We need better controls to make people have more accountability. He suggests we take a look into the pass and apply some of those principles, people have to have skin in the game. If the senate will initiate a war, their children should have to serve as well.

His framework addresses the critical issue. Some people are recieving the optionaility of tremendous upside, while society is recieving the downside. If our society does not address this critical flaw in our system. We are likely to blow up.

He maybe abbrasive at times but his unabashed approach is important for what he's trying to accomplish. "If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud." He see's trying to galvinize others because the system is extremely vulnerable to corruption and instability.

But I think the theme he is pushing is definitely appropriate and it goes straight to the root of many problems today.


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Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder Incerto Nassim Nicholas Taleb 9781400067824 Books Reviews

Nissam Taleb's Antifragile reads like a random walk through his brain with ideas being flung about in every which direction with no linear development of some greater idea....but perhaps that is a feature and not a bug (as the saying goes) of the book.

Taleb divides the world into three states of fitness fragile, robust and anti-fragile. We can all recognize the first two fragile, being diminished or damaged by shock, stress and volatility; Robust, being resilient. Antifragile is a term he appears to have coined to mean things that benefit from shock, stress and volatility. A good example of this is human muscle that grows and develops the more it is stressed (up to a point, of course).

The best explanation of the concept is when he writes about the health field. Fragile situations include those where the upside is known and limited and the downside is unknown and could be limitless. His example of this is our tendency in the West to over medicate. Prescribing antibiotics for minor, non-life threatening conditions (think ear infections in kids) that the body would have very likely dealt with on its own has led to super bugs that require ever stronger antibiotics.

Anti-fragile is characterised by a certain and limited downside with an unknown and limitless upside. His example here is when someone has a terminal illness. The downside is known - death within a year or two. In this case, it makes sense to use experimental procedures and untested drugs. The worst that could happen is that the patient could die a bit earlier than otherwise; the best would be recovery and a long and happy life.

And now, for some criticism.

It seemed to me that on every second or third page there was a phrase similar to "As we saw in Chapter X..." or "As we will see in Chapter Y..." I say, deal with a topic or issue once, deal with it completely and then move on.

Taleb says that Nature is an anti-fragile system, that Nature benefits from the random variation to which it is subjected and that this helps the biosphere to survive even massive shocks. A major point is that fragile individuals are required to die to the benefit of the community.

This is not my view of evolution. The variability of DNA, the fact that no two individuals within a species are exactly alike, is a necessary condition to Darwinian Evolution, but it is not sufficient. Darwin's point is that more individuals are born than can possibly survive and procreate. As each individual is different, some will be endowed with traits that will make them more fit for the current environment than others. These will survive, procreate and pass on the more favourable genes to future generations.

It is not that it is necessary for individuals to die for the system to be anti-fragile as Taleb suggests, but because of the surplus of individuals and the competition for resources, some individuals must necessarily die. This is what provides Nature with its ability to survive shocks.

His argument about variability in restaurants leading to better eateries (i.e. the restaurant industry is anti-fragile as it benefits from variability) is similarly flawed. It is the free market in restaurants and the fact that there is, in general, a greater supply of restaurants than demand that generates good places to eat. If severe regulation increased the barriers to opening a restaurant and decreased the supply, we would end up with, to use Taleb's phrase, Soviet style cafeteria food as any old restaurant would survive.

Taleb notes the asymmetry in airline arrival times. The variance is almost always negative planes seldom arrive early. Well, Duh! First there are clearly no uncontrollable events that would make the airplane early, but there are mechanical breakdown, adverse weather and so on that can delay flights. Furthermore, there is no payoff for any of the controlling agents if the plane is early. "Early" is as negative as "late" for airport personnel and only potential early arrivals can be mitigated (the pilot can slow down the aircraft). As a result, flights are mostly on time and when there are not, they are much more likely to be late than early.

Yes, Dr Taleb, I know. I am nitpicking and you hate that. But if you are trying to convince me of the elegance and veracity of your ideas, you could use better examples.

I liked this book the least of Fooled by Randomness (my favourite) and Black Swan, but still give this one a three star as I like Taleb and believe he has important insights.
Are you ready for the theory (or theories) of everything? And not just theories, but insights into almost everything under the sun, and innumerable examples and illustrations. My favorite is the section in which Fat Tony debates Socrates, a near demolition of Platonic thought and it's attendant fetish for Top-down thinking.
You won't agree with everything in this work, but the open minded will find it highly stimulating, even inspiring--a work of tremendous sweep and power.
Taleb's thesis is

"Everything gains or loses from volatility. Fragility is what loses from volatility
and uncertainty. "

Voltatility is also taken to mean randomness/uncertainty in certain cases.

He maps a spectrum

Fragile to Robust to AntiFragile.

Fragile things break with volatility and stressors.
Robust things don't lose or gain. (But over a long time their robustness may erode).
Antifragile things gain with volatility.

Fragile things are concave. Concave meaning limited upside massive downside. Think paying for parking verses recieving a ticket.
Antifragile things are convex. Convex meaning limited downside massive upside. Think lottery ticket.

Given the condition of his theory, he argues that our society is becoming more fragile. And the main reason is due to accountability (i'm oversimplifying theres a lot more in between). For example, he says that writers, media pundits, academics, bankers and wall st types get the upside while the society gets the downside. An example is the financial crisis. The ceo's get the upside even if they get fired, they get millions and society has to bail them out. Another example is media pundits, who can be absolutely wrong, but still be on the air because its easy for people to forget. But there information may misinform people. The media analyst gets the upside of being controversial. The public gets the downside of bad knowledge.

He also suggests that our ancestors knew the dire conseuqnces of the agent/principal problem. So how did they deal with it? Hannurabi, eye for and eye. If you make a bridge you have to live under it. People nowadays can blow things up and not have to deal with the consequences. They can spew lies and misinform people and get away with it and become famous. We need better controls to make people have more accountability. He suggests we take a look into the pass and apply some of those principles, people have to have skin in the game. If the senate will initiate a war, their children should have to serve as well.

His framework addresses the critical issue. Some people are recieving the optionaility of tremendous upside, while society is recieving the downside. If our society does not address this critical flaw in our system. We are likely to blow up.

He maybe abbrasive at times but his unabashed approach is important for what he's trying to accomplish. "If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud." He see's trying to galvinize others because the system is extremely vulnerable to corruption and instability.

But I think the theme he is pushing is definitely appropriate and it goes straight to the root of many problems today.