Category Archives: Antifragility

The Antifragile Enterprise: Complexity Exists, but Let’s Not Overcomplicate it or IT. – Zen and the Art of Enterprise Architecture – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Leave a reply

So how can we think approach the topic of building an “antifragile” enterprise? First we have to accept Mr. Taleb’s assertion that this notion goes beyond building as system for resiliency. The system has to be built to accept micro amounts of stress or entropy in order to thrive. This is akin to how systems in nature thrive. Therefore stress should be treated as a positive event, not one that an architect should shy away from. But there is a second aspect of this stress. There has to be amount of observation and feedback into the system/solution in order to “comprehend” the stress. The capture of these events allows for the modern enterprise to incorporate the experience into the collective knowledge or the “muscle memory” or the organization. The learning organization comes directly from the practice of systems thinking. Therefore, I am making my own assertion that building an “antifragile” enterprise is one that knows how to exploit information effectively through the application of modern technology.

via The Antifragile Enterprise: Complexity Exists, but Let’s Not Overcomplicate it or IT. – Zen and the Art of Enterprise Architecture – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.

NOTE FOR BOOK VI of ANTIFRAGILE – HOW TO SEEK FRACTAL IMMORTALITY

Leave a reply

NOTE FOR BOOK VI of ANTIFRAGILE – HOW TO SEEK FRACTAL IMMORTALITY

I find it insulting to nature that a single individual would seek immortality (a follow up to Jean-Louis Rheault’s posts here and my statements of revulsion at Kurzweil’s “singularity”). Immortality is not only unethical; it is even unnecessary.

My genes can be immortal; they are the ones that should seek immortality. And they tend to do.

We continue our lives, our genes diluted at every descendant, but at every generation there are more descendants that offset the dilution. Simply, if one has 2 descendants who in turn have 2 descendants, at the 2nd generation I duplicate myself in two halfs (so stay immortal in 2 parts), and as the fractal tree shows, at the 7th generation, I am present in 1/128th of each of the 128 individuals.

(I am simplifying. More technically, one needs a bit more than 2 decendants to stay “whole”, owing to genetic drift from the replication errors of the DNA. So no wonder we have historically had ~ 2.2 children per woman. Further, I am not counting the fact that my genes also survive through indirect descendans, such as nephews, etc. And I am not counting re-combinations, i.e. descendants marrying each other).

We are fragile; our genes are antifragile.

via Timeline Photos | Facebook.

Did Davos Steal Its Theme From an Author Who Hates Davos? – Global – The Atlantic Wire

Leave a reply

The big idea guiding this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is “Resilient Dynamism.” That might not mean much to rubes like us, who don’t get invited to schmooze with other plutocrats and chat amicably about the state of global economy. But to the thought leaders who pay close attention to these summits, Davos 2013’s vague headlining idea sounds a lot like another vague idea forwarded by Nassim Taleb. And if WEF organizers did in fact lift their theme from Taleb’s work, we’re guessing the author who famously hates Davos is none too happy.

via Did Davos Steal Its Theme From an Author Who Hates Davos? – Global – The Atlantic Wire.

Devops, complexity and anti-fragility in IT: Risk and anti-fragility — GigaOm

Leave a reply

So why would anyone want to promote an approach that encourages constant change, when failure in the form of outages or breaches or large-scale processing errors exact such a heavy toll on businesses? The short answer is because some application domains require it, but that’s also a bit glib. Instead, let me bring in the concept of “anti-fragility,” as coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book “Anti-fragile: Things That Gain From Disorder.”

I explained the gist last week:

“Anti-fragility is the opposite of fragility: as Taleb notes, where a fragile package would be stamped with ‘do not mishandle,’ an anti-fragile package would be stamped ‘please mishandle.’ Anti-fragile things get better with each (non-fatal) failure.”

Anti-fragile systems benefit from variability and can take advantage of differences from the “normal” to ultimately gain value. Anti-fragile systems behave in such a way that failures due to change exact a small cost, but successful change drives exponentially higher value, so the system gains overall. Taleb argues this is only achieved by keeping the scope of each activity small enough that the downside risk is manageable (and results in strengthening the system), and that any gains can be maintained ongoing.

via Devops, complexity and anti-fragility in IT: Risk and anti-fragility — Tech News and Analysis.