Nassim Taleb, famous for his prescient identification of rare ‘black swan’ events that are correlated with economic catastrophes, recently proposed the notion of ‘anti-fragility’ as a way to conceptualise the reproduction of markets and output in the face of such events.

In fact, anti-fragile structures and processes are all around us — suffusing life itself.

To define anti-fragility, Taleb asks what would be the true opposite of ‘fragile’. Starting with the Sword of Damocles, he chooses as its opposite, not the robustness of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, but the inventiveness of the Hydra, who sprouts two heads whenever one is cut off.

via The anti-fragile nature of life › Opinion (ABC Science).