The Stream : Embracing ‘antifragility’
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Monthly Archives: January 2013
FLP – Free Library Podcast
Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Recorded 11/29/2012
Listen to MP3 audioIllustrious researcher and Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute, Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. With a command of subjects both technical and philosophical and a self-described specialty in “randomness,” Taleb has been called “the most prophetic voice of all” (GQ). His other acclaimed books include Dynamic Hedging and Fooled by Randomness, for which The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell named him “Wall Street’s principal dissident.” A former derivatives trader, Taleb co-directs the Research Center for Risk Engineering. In Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Taleb describes how to thrive during moments of disaster, explaining how randomness and disorder drive innovation and invention.
Why we will be using email for at least another 50 years — GigaOM Pro
So, applying Taleb’s reasoning and Benoit Mandelbrot’s version of the Lindy effect, our modern social technologies — most of which haven’t been with us more than five years — can be guaranteed to be with us only an addition five years or so. And those pre- or proto-social technologies — like instant messaging and email — may be with us 50 years or more, even if the social tools don’t fall into disuse.
So, if you are scratching your head five or ten years from now, and wondering why people are still using email to do things that might be better done with newer and shinier tools, just remember this is not about rationality, it’s about something more like gravity, more like deep culture:
If there’s something in the culture – say, a practice or a religion that you don’t understand – yet has been done for a long time – don’t call it “irrational.” And: Don’t expect the practice to discontinue.
via Why we will be using email for at least another 50 years — GigaOM Pro.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Recent and Forthcoming Seminars and Talks
Wow, NNT and Danny Kahneman together again!
(These are generally open to the public; corporate lectures are usually excluded from this list)
2013
Yale University, Feb 11
New York Public Library, Feb 5, Conversation with Daniel Kahneman
Continuing Book Tour: Barnes and Noble, Feb 8, 8AM; Book Culture (near Columbia U.) Feb 28
National Science Foundation, Division of Mathematical Sciences, Jan 25, 2013
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Quantitative Congress, Jan 22, 2013 [Closed to the Public]. Same day lunch at Union League Club.
Oxford University, Jan 11, 2013 On the Ubiquity of Nonlinear Responses in Life and Their Probabilistic Consequences (Why projects are late, dams hard to build, hypertension medicine complicated to administer, etc.)
via Nassim Nicholas Taleb Recent and Forthcoming Seminars and Talks.
Friends, for the Friday lecture in Oxford…
Friends, for the Friday lecture in Oxford, we had to change venue to the largest one, the Sheldonian (capacity 1,000). There are a few seats left (27). This talk will be different from others, as I will integrate fractal richness in the texture of life.
http://btlecture.eventbrite.co.uk/
BT Centre Lecture to be given by Nassim N. Taleb
Antifragile: How to Live and Manage in a World We Don’t Understand. Everything in life has nonlinear responses, from medical treatments to project management. The talk introduces the concept of fragility and