Title: Antifragile
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Year Published: 2012
Kind of Book: Philosophy/Rationality/Economics
How Strongly I Recommend It: 10/10
My Impressions: You can tell someone is a revolutionary thinker when they are forced to create their own words because there is not even a (vocabulary) for their ideas. Taleb has an entire glossary of terms he created to explain the concepts in this book. His style may be a bit tangential and arrogant sounding for some, but I personally loved his sense of humor and all of the distant places he takes the reader to make his argument. Antifragility is such an important idea and there is finally a word for it and a great book to explain it
Date Read: 2020
Questions Author is Trying to Answer
What does it mean to be antifragile?
Why are antifragile systems superior?
Why should we have skin in the game and demand others do as well?
Why does wind extinguish a candle and energize a fire?
What things make something fragile? Resilient? Antifragile?
How does this principle of antifragility apply to evolution, economics, medicine, nutrition, history, and just about everything?
Should you trust someone who never makes mistakes?
Should we be trying to mitigate volatility and stressors or using them in small doses to make us stronger/better?
Practical Takeaways
Be the fire and wish for the wind ie. Don't hide from randomness, uncertainty, and chaos. Use them
Embrace randomness
Eat your own cooking ie. Be the first to be hurt if you're wrong
Make sure others are eating their own cooking ie. Make sure others are the first to be hurt if they are wrong
If the subject is not interesting enough to you to look up the information necessary, you shouldn't be writing about it
Say and write the same opinions you speak in private with friends after a bottle of wine
To become antifragile Put yourself into situations that love mistakes. Make the mistakes numerous and small in harm
Go to the gym right after getting off an intercontinental flight (even if you're tired)
If you need something urgently done, give the task to the busiest (or second busiest) person in the office
Work in cafes to "work against the resistance [of the background noise]
Assume that the worst harm is possible
Lift the maximum weight and then spend the rest of your time resting and splurging on mafia-sized steaks
Spread information by disguising it as a secret
If you really want people to read a book, tell them it is 'overrated'
Get journalists to write unfavorable accounts about you
To estimate the quality of research, take the caliber of the higher detractor, or the caliber of the lowest detractor whom the author answers in print -whichever is lower.
Rock the boat as a writer or artist
Stop caring about your reputation
Focus on strengthening your bones, not just your muscles
Aim for acute stressors followed by ample time for recovery
Depression should only be medicated when there is risk of suicide, not mood swings
Don't make every part of your day planned in advance
Make mistakes, but keep them small enough that you can survive them//ie avoid irrecoverable mistakes
After you make a mistake, introspect, find out why you made it in order to learn from it
Build a system in which nobody's fall can drag others down
Don't mistake absence of evidence with evidence of absence -Donald Rumsfeld
Love randomness
When ordering at restaurant duplicate the selection of the most overweight male at the table
When ordering at a restaurant randomly pick from the menu without reading the name of the item, under the peace of mind that Baal made the choice for you
Focus on getting rid of what makes you unhappy, not trying to add another positive
Remove medications that your doctor gives you
Resist eating fruits not found in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean (eg. Oranges, papayas, mangos)=
Drink no liquid that is not at least a thousand years old (eg. Wine, water, and coffee)
Remove offensive irritants (eg. The morning paper, the boss, daily commute)
Remove air conditioning (but not heat)
Dislike anything that softens or mollifies you-Ancient Rome
No sunscreen
No sunglasses (if you have brown eyes)
No orange juice
No elevator
No loud music
No soft drinks
No juicer
No meetings
No bosses
Laugh frequently
Eat meals with others
Remove a few meals at random, or avoid steadiness in food consumption
Consume protein randomly
Walk effortlessly at a pace below stress
Never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board
Make sure there is also a copilot
If you vote for war make sure you have at least one descendent (child or grandchild) exposed to combat-Ralf Nader
Make sure the person making economic predictions has something to lose from it
If you see fraud, say fraud
Never put your army's back to the wall
Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow
Read original sources
Beware of things that are marketed heavily to you A: they are likely to be inferior since they are not selling themselves
Give more weight to witnesses and opinions when they present the opposite of a conflict of interest
Big Ideas
Wind extinguishes a candle, but energizes a fire
Stressors that harm weak/small things will actually strengthen strong/big things
It is more difficult to make your thinking clean and simple than hard to understand
Comfort is a disease
Civilization has been a quest to become more comfortable
A person who has made many errors (though never the SAME error more than once) is more reliable than someone who has never made any errors
You get more benefit in well being from removing a negative than adding a positive to your life
If you see a fraud and don't say fraud, you are a fraud
If the 21st century is not religious (ie. If a new kind of religioun does not spring up in the 21st century) than the human species will destroy itself
Protection from harm causes fragility
Small amounts of harm make us stronger
Stressors are Information
The Extended Disorder Family:
Uncertainty
Variability
Imperfect, incomplete knowledge
Chance
Chaos
Volatility
Disorder
Entropy
Time** the more time, the more events, the more disorder…The fragile breaks with time.
The unknown
Randomness
Turmoil
Stressor
Error
Dispersion of outcomes
Unknowledge
Negative is NOT the opposite of positive
The opposite of positive is fragility
There are three ways all things react to disorder
Fragile: things that lose from disorder (gets weaker or breaks)
Robust: things that withstand disorder (doesn't change)
Antifragle: Things that gain from disorder (gets stronger)
Ideas are antifragile (ie. They get stronger when contended)
Bad Press is good for marketing/sales
Humans require a degree of randomness and disorder to be happy
If you could predict EXACTLY what your day looked like everyday, you would soon begin to feel dead inside
Evolution is antifragile and preferences the survival of the Group to the survival of the Individual
Every plane crash brings us closer to safety, improves the system, and makes the next flight safer
Therefore
Plane Crashes are bad for the people on the plane
But
Plane Crashes are good for everyone who plans to fly on a plane at some later date
Sacrifice for the sake of the group is behind the notion of heroism
Soldiers who died in battle are heroes
Because
They sacrificed their lives for the good of the group
Similarly
Entrepreneurs who failed in their business ventures are heroes
Because
Their failure was a kind of sacrifice for the good of the group (ie. Other can learn from their mistakes)
Myth that Randomness is Risky and comfortable is safe
It is just as risky to be an employee as it is to work for yourself
It is just that
Employees risks are hidden
The avoidance of small mistakes makes large ones more severe
The child who after spending time in a sterilized environment is at greater risk when left out in the open
Because
The child will not have learned to build up the defenses to protect himself
Long draughts followed by intense rainfall in more dangerous than sustained rainfall year round
Long draughts of conflict followed by World War is more dangerous than sustained battles and smaller wars
When you avoid risk and stressors things are even more catastrophic when then finally do happen
Never in history has the world been more prone to more damage
The more American militaries intervene with other countries for the sake of stability, the more they bring instability
Because
The countries will not have learned to build up the defenses to protect themselves
Leaders from the past went to battle with their men
Leaders of today sit behind their desk and send others to war
Things that are marketed heavily are likely to be worse in quality
Because
Good quality products/services require less marketing (ie. They sell themselves)
Unfavorable journalistic accounts make a person more interesting to the public
And
The more interesting a person appears to the public, the more their product/service/art will sell
Surprising Facts
Plants protect themselves from harm and fend off predators with poisonous substances that, ingested by us in the right quantities, may stimulate our organisms
Until penicillin going to the doctor actually increased your chance of dying
The average life expectancy was 30years old until the 20th century, but that is because the distribution was skewed by the bulk of death coming from birth and childhood mortality.
In the last 50 years only 4 months has been added to the expected life span of a person who is already 60 years old
Asians react poorly to wine because they were not exposed to it in their evolution (also milk?)
Most gladiators in ancient Rome were volunteers who wanted the chance to become heroes by risking their lives and winning or to die honorably. Most were not forced labor.
Unknown Terms
Homeopathy: a system of medical practice that treats a disease especially by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in larger amounts produce in healthy persons symptoms similar to those of the disease. A basic belief is “like cures like.” 2)It was developed in the late 1700s in Germany.3) It is considered a Pseudoscience by some as it has shown little empirical backing.
Homeopath: a doctor who practices homeopathy
Hormesis: 1) a term used by toxicologists to refer to the increased resistance one often recived after minor exposure to a harmful substance. 2) A bit of harmful substance, or stressor, in the right dose or with the right intensity, stimulates the organism and makes it better, stronger, healthier, and prepared for a stronger dose the next exposure
Post-Traumatic Growth: 1)when people harmed by past events surpass where they were before the traumatic event. 2) positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and other challenges in order to rise to a higher level of functioning.
Resilient: resists shocks and stays the same
Antifragile: things that thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. 2)Unlike resilient things which resist shocks, but stay the say, antifragile things get better
Fragilista: Someone who causes fragility because he thinks he understands what's going on. Also usually lacks a sense of humor
Barbell Strategy: A dual strategy, a combination of two extremes, one safe and on speculative, deemed more robust than a "monomodal" strategy; often a necessary condition for antifragility. (eg. Marrying a stable guy with a good job and having a fling with a Rockstar, reading Shakespeare 80% of the time and trashy celebrity gossip 20% of the time)
Iatrogenics: When more harm is done by the person trying to heal (eg. Until people were more likely to die if they went to the Hospital than if they stayed home)
Naive Interventionism: The preference, even obligation, to 'do something' over doing nothing, even when doing something does more harm than good
Doxastic Commitment (Soul in the Game): The idea that you must only believe predictions and opinions by those who committed themselves to a certain belief, and had something to lose, in a way to pay a cost in being wrong
The Jospeh Stinglitz Problem: Lack of penalty from bad recommendation causing harm to others. Applies to people with opinions without skin in the game.
Rational Optionality: Not being locked into a given program, so one can change his mind as he goes along based on discovery or new information. 2) Keeping ones options open
Narrative Fallacy: The tendency to fit a story, or pattern, to a series of facts whether or not they are actually connected or just random. 2) The statistical application is data mining
Doxastic Commitment (Skin in the game or Soul in the game): a class of beliefs that go beyond talk, and to which we are committed enough to take personal risks. 2) Putting your money where your mouth is or your life/reputation etc.
Careerism: The overwhelming desire or urge to advance one's own career or social status, usually at the expense of other personal interests or social growth.
Aristotles Golden Middle way (Golden Mean): often mislabeled Aristotle's Golden mean. Appearing in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic Maxim nothing to excess and emphasized in later Aristotelian philosophy, it is the desirable middle between two extremes for any virtue, one of excess and the other of deficiency.
Data Mining: the process of discovering patterns in large data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
The Lucretius Problem: 1)a mental defect where we assume the worst-case event that has happened is the worst-case event that can happen. In so doing, we fail to understand that the worst event that has happened in the past surpassed the worst event that came before it.2) Nassim Taleb coined this term after the Latin poet who wrote that the fool believes that the tallest mountain in the world will be equal to the tallest on he has observed.
Tryst (pronounced trist): a private romantic rendezvous between lovers.
Smear Campaign (smear tactic, smear): an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda. It can be applied to individuals or groups. Common targets are public officials, politicians, political candidates, activists and ex-spouses
Ship of State: a famous and oft-cited metaphor put forth by Plato in Book VI of the Republic (488a–489d). It likens the governance of a city-state to the command of a naval vessel and ultimately argues that the only people fit to be captain of this shitp are philosopher kings, benevolent men with absolute power who have access to the Form of the Good. The origins of the metaphor can be traced back to the lyric poet Alcaeus
Catastrophic failure (irrecoverable mistake): a failure from which recovery is impossible.
Procrustean bed: something designed to produce conformity by unnatural or violent means. 2) named after Procrustes; a robber in Greek mythology, who tied his victims to a bed, either stretching or cutting off their legs in order to make them fit it.
The Great Turkey Problem: A thought experiment put forward by Nassim Taleb. A turkey who has received food every day from a farmer for its entire life concludes that farmers love turkeys and makes future projects that farmers will continue to be nice to turkeys for the next year. Low and behold Thanksgiving comes and the farmer kills all the turkeys. This thought experiment is meant to illustrate the point that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.