Paperback, 519 pages
English language
Published Nov. 5, 2012 by Allen Lane.
"The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive and important thinkers of our time. Praise for Nicholas Nassim Taleb "[This] is the lesson of Taleb. and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable."--Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point "[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne."--The Wall Street Journal "The …
"The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive and important thinkers of our time. Praise for Nicholas Nassim Taleb "[This] is the lesson of Taleb. and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable."--Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point "[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne."--The Wall Street Journal "The most prophetic voice of all. [Taleb is] a genuinely significant philosopher. someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone."--GQ "Changed my view of how the world works."--Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate"--
"Examples of Antifragility: When you stress your body by lifting a big weight, your body gets stronger. New York has the best restaurants in the world because particular restaurants are always going bust, making the aggregate stronger and stronger, or antifragile. Evolution is antifragile. Certain business and investment strategies are antifragile. Older things tend to be more antifragile than newer ones - because they've been exposed to more Black Swans"--
With an interesting theoretical concept in mind, Taleb succeeds in my stopping reading this book after 50 pages. One doesn't have to disqualify main stream science, the president of the FED every page, end on end. Make your point, state your opinion in a grown up manner. Don't be a child and a bore. Bought it second hand. Goes into the waste-paper.
Best idea in this book: consider the downside as well as the upside, and systemic perverse incentives can largely be corrected by ensuring decision-makers have skin in the game. For these ideas, read Taleb's other book called "Skin in the Game" and throw this one in the trash.
Every real-world example he gives of something "anti-fragile" could be considered simply "resilient," so I doubt that it exists outside of mythology, like his example of the Hydra, which grows 2 new heads for each decapitation it experiences.
Long discussion on how nonlinear systems are anti-fragile, but it's more descriptive than definitive. He deplores his favorite straw men "Soviet Harvard Academics" for not understanding these systems with curves. (They do; they formulated them.)
On the one hand, academics are all ivory tower fools who don't understand his real-world economics papers like all these business people seem too, and on the other hand, …
Best idea in this book: consider the downside as well as the upside, and systemic perverse incentives can largely be corrected by ensuring decision-makers have skin in the game. For these ideas, read Taleb's other book called "Skin in the Game" and throw this one in the trash.
Every real-world example he gives of something "anti-fragile" could be considered simply "resilient," so I doubt that it exists outside of mythology, like his example of the Hydra, which grows 2 new heads for each decapitation it experiences.
Long discussion on how nonlinear systems are anti-fragile, but it's more descriptive than definitive. He deplores his favorite straw men "Soviet Harvard Academics" for not understanding these systems with curves. (They do; they formulated them.)
On the one hand, academics are all ivory tower fools who don't understand his real-world economics papers like all these business people seem too, and on the other hand, these business people don't get the value of his theoretical foresight like these academic people who invited him to speak seem to.
On the one hand, doctors who are in the trenches know way more than academics who never leave their labs who arrogantly think their ideas will somehow survive working on flesh and blood patients, and on the other hand these foolish old timers used to use leeches, for crying out loud, rather than understand the mechanisms and pathways of disease.
Vitamins aren't real, icing your broken nose is disrespectful to nature, and will you alternative medicine types stop calling me already -- "the approach of this book is ultra-Orthodox, ultra-rigorous, and ultra-scientific; certainly not in favor of alternative medicine."
He simultaneously champions evidence based medicine and decries past ignorant practices. You can't have the first without the other. Practical application of theory on a population and monitoring the results is how we learn what works and what doesn't. If you are attempting the visceral experimentation he advocates, you'll inevitably find something that doesn't work and is in fact harmful 20 years down the line. There literally no other way to "just know" what the best way is, like he implies.
The only takeaway here is this book is a great example of ego justification.
"I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand."
It's been quite a long time since a book changed or challenged so much of the things I believed in, and this is exactly what Antifragile has done on an unbelievable amount of levels (politics, health, work, ethics, ...). With the aforementioned quote that immediately hooked me, this book makes you think on a lot of levels about how you see the world. All along, Nassim Nicholas Taleb writing is exquisite, it's really rare for such profound subjects to be treated in such a blunt, honest and straight-to-the-point way (even with some snarky comments that made me laugh out loud while reading). The book attacks a lot of things that build our society with a wonderful sense of wisdom and clarity. Armed with a bullshit detector, Nassim N. Taleb attacks everything : the way we envision society, technology, youth, …
"I want to live happily in a world I don’t understand."
It's been quite a long time since a book changed or challenged so much of the things I believed in, and this is exactly what Antifragile has done on an unbelievable amount of levels (politics, health, work, ethics, ...). With the aforementioned quote that immediately hooked me, this book makes you think on a lot of levels about how you see the world. All along, Nassim Nicholas Taleb writing is exquisite, it's really rare for such profound subjects to be treated in such a blunt, honest and straight-to-the-point way (even with some snarky comments that made me laugh out loud while reading). The book attacks a lot of things that build our society with a wonderful sense of wisdom and clarity. Armed with a bullshit detector, Nassim N. Taleb attacks everything : the way we envision society, technology, youth, medicine, drugs, business, finances, ... It's really hard to express how much this book encompass, but what is sure is that reading it will change your mind forever.
