Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: 3 (Incerto) Paperback – Deckle Edge, 28 January 2014

Great book. Gives powerful insights. Loved it! Hard to put down.

Worths Money

Content is amazing

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a thought-provoking and insightful book that challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about risk, uncertainty, and resilience. Taleb is a renowned thinker and writer, and his ideas have had a significant impact on fields as diverse as finance, economics, and philosophy.The concept of antifragility, as introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder", describes systems or entities that not only withstand stress, shocks, and uncertainty, but actually thrive and improve as a result. Antifragility is the opposite of fragility, where a system or entity is vulnerable to damage or collapse under stress, shocks, and uncertainty.Antifragile systems are characterized by their ability to adapt and learn from mistakes, to use variability and randomness to their advantage, and to improve through exposure to stressors. These systems are not only resilient, but they actively seek out and benefit from disruption and disorder.Taleb argues that antifragility is an essential characteristic for survival and success in complex and unpredictable environments. He identifies a range of antifragile systems, from biological organisms that improve through exposure to stressors, to businesses that thrive in volatile markets, to cultures and social systems that evolve through trial and error.In practical terms, the concept of antifragility has important implications for individuals, organizations, and societies. It suggests that instead of trying to eliminate risk and uncertainty, we should focus on building systems that can adapt and benefit from them. This might mean embracing experimentation and failure, seeking out diverse perspectives and approaches, and building redundancy and flexibility into our systems.Overall, the concept of antifragility challenges us to think differently about how we approach risk, uncertainty, and change. It offers a new perspective on resilience and adaptability, and suggests that there are opportunities for growth and improvement even in the most challenging and unpredictable situations.Overall, the book is an eye opener to think about risk and how to adjust to unpredictable environment.

If you had read "The Black Swan" or if you follow Nicholas Nassim Taleb on twitter, you are probably aware that many people find his style to be arrogant, pompous and cantankerous. And yet you will find there is a significantly group of individuals who love and values his insights and style of writing. Anti fragile is a hard book to summarise and categorise. (It cut across different domains like anthropology, economics, medicine, history, religion). Let me try to summarise the content nonetheless.What is Anti fragile? Many things/institutions/individuals are fragile to volatility. Like a vase which is fragile and breaks if it falls. What is the opposite of fragile? Many think that the opposite of fragile is robust. (Things which are unaffected by volatility). But Taleb says things which gains from volatility is the opposite and he calls it Anti Fragile. We may be intellectually blind to it not organically blind. Example: Hormesis, favourable response to small dose of toxins.Below are some interesting insights from the book.In Book one:Domain independence is domain dependence. Meaning one may be aware X is true in a specific domain and completely blind to the same X in a different domain.Stress is information. Information is anti fragile. Therefore stress is anti fragile. It is said that best horses lose when they compete with slower ones. If you want something to be done give to the busiest or second busiest person in work.Touristification of life: Eliminating randomness in life by trying too much to control life makes us fragile. You may find people who do well in academica to be boring. Hence erudition is anti fragile and academia is fragile.In Book two:Bottom up design is anti fragile because it has a lot of median variation. Top to bottom design is fragile because it has extreme variation. Therefore some form of volatility is good.The Great Turkey problem: fooled by the properties of the past and getting the story backward. Turkey is fed everyday by the butcher; everyday it confirms its staff analyst that the butcher loves turkey. Then comes a day when it's not a good idea to be a turkey. Therefore ABSENCE OF EVIDENCES IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE.Modernity is the systematic extraction of humans from the randomness of life. Like a lion in bronx zoo.Intervention causes iatrogenics. Go for intervention only when the benefits outweighs the cost. Therefore only for extreme scenarios.In Book three:Having a library is anti fragile.Introduces Stoicism, Seneca the practical stoic and the domestification of emotions.Barbell strategy is the domestic of uncertainty. Instead of going for mid risk options, use 80% conservative risk and 20% extreme risk. In the event of black swan, you will be protected from fragility.In Book four:Make use of optionality. Option= asymmetric + rationality.Negatives of Soviet-Harvard types knowledge. Debunks some common misconceptions of Academia. Example wealth creates knowledge and not the other way around.Book five is for those who are technically inclined.In Book Six:Less is more. Importance of Subtractive knowledge. You get rich by not going bust.In Book Seven:Being ethical makes you anti fragile.Modernity provides talkers (Journalists and Economists)free option. Example Thomas Friedman openly advocate the war on Iraq (2003) .Despite all his predictions and advocacies were spectacularly wrong, he doesn't face any consequences of his action. The ancients were aware of the talker's free option and advocated skin in the game.Hammurabi code written in 1750BC Mesopotamia advocates skin in the game.

Great work

You need patience to read this.....avoid ,if you think it's fun.

As usual Taleb writes in his own style without giving much thinking to what is politically correct. Another thing I like about his writing is his style: it is his own style mostly. Many other books I read sound almost similar- like Taleb himself says in this book - cut-and-dried/New York Times style of writing.This book is also light on references. Again, in my opinion, many books depend/give too many references to their sources in fact in each line. That is one way good for accuracy, but it also take away the charm of the writer. In my opinion a good writer-in this case Taleb-should be confident enough to say what he wants to say without bothering the reader much about the accuracy of his statements. It should be the reviewer/critic/reader's worry to go look for any errors in the facts if they feel that way.Taleb also come out as a philosopher, as usual, rather than a social scientist who quotes or refers to the various research studies in scientific literature. Taleb is that rare type of philosopher who comes very close to nailing the workings behind the modern age. For example, in the book he categorically mentions how much is today's world a complicated place as compared to its older times. I think this is one fact we all must come to grasps instead of clinging to the notion that we are masters of this world as we had been for the past few thousand years.