AntiFragile

By Nassim Taleb

Draft of an essay...
 

I have to choose my words carefully here. There is much to dislike about Antifragile. But that misses the point. This is a very well thought out book. And the act of disagreeing with parts of it can be very clarifying. Not something you can dismiss.

I don't think the author, Taleb, is a very pleasant man. He'd rather insult and fight with those that disagree with him, than work with them to foster understanding. It makes for great writing. Though It makes me doubt how effective he'll be in getting people to believe him.

Not that he'd care. In fact he's probably scoff at me fore using the word 'effective' You are either a sucker, or you are not. Compromise and slow steps are not for people who are as clear on what they believe as Taleb.

What does Taleb believe? That some things gain from time and disorder. These are anti fragile. Other things break over time and through volatility. That sounds self evident. It's really the impact of these two statements that he dwells on.

He hates corporations and their top down control. Too many people who will say whatever it takes to keep there job. No integrity. He hates and fears people with conflicts of interest and the systems that foster them. He is disgusted by people making decisions and offering opinions when they have no skin in the game, or even worse, people who have no downside and have there poor choices paid for by other people. This latter disgust is what drives his hate of corporations. The manages can only get bonuses. If the company fails, the failure isn't paid for by the executives. Its paid for by the owners.

He has a large distrust of much modern technology, but a great respect for the process of innovation.

Smart observation-- if you sample many things randomly, on average you will sample them half way through their life. So the things most likely to be around 50 years from now, were probably around 50 years ago. Something that's only been around for a year will probably be gone in as much time.

From this he develops a great respect for the past. Things that have been around for 1000 years will probably be around for the next. Where does this leave much of modern medicine and nutrition?

One of my problems with this book is that pushes his respect of the past, and of tradition almost to the point of fear and of being unwilling to experiment and tryout new things. Taleb would point out that it can take decades to figure out if something new is safe... trans fats, driving with a cell phone. Let someone else be the guina pig.

He has a great discussion on the non-linearity of failure. We often project growth and change linearly. That's not true for most things. If you dropping a glass from 10 feet is not just 10 times worse than dropping a glass from one foot. The glass will probably be ok in the later case, it will shatter in the first. He calls the barbell effect.

For all my complaints with the book, I do want to develop the discipline to apply it's ideas to my life.