Category Archives: Contributors

The U.S. Debt Through A Lens Concavely – Seeking Alpha

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In his now cult classic book, “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”, iconoclastic thinker Nassim Taleb weighs in on such diverse topics as how the “losers” in history eventually prevail, why Thanksgiving turkeys should not make future predictions based strictly on the past and why an increase in theoretical understanding of medicine actually leads to fewer drugs being patented. The arguments he develops are witty, informed by a wide-ranging, targeted erudition. I will leave the non-initiated reader to develop a taste for this undefined and indefinable thinker. But the core of his dichotomy pits the idea of “fragility” against that of “antifragility.” He then relates “fragility” and “antifragility” to a wide array of states of the world that concern us all, and in particular, the presence of government in our lives.

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» Book Review: Antifragile Coffee Theory

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For as much as I love this book and Taleb’s other work, there is one thing that I must take issue with. It seems to me that being both a humanist and a proponent of antifragility are incompatible views. Taleb, however, claims that he is both of these things. The reason I see this as a contradiction is because human biological evolution cannot progress without stress and selection pressures of all kinds on individual humans. Thus, our attempts at saving weak individual people and trying to eliminate individual suffering may come at the expense of fragilizing the human species as a whole. Humanists, in this sense, are fragilistas.

As a humanist, one should innately value all human life and want to limit human suffering to any extent possible a position I’m in favor of. However, should this be done at the expense of fragilizing the species? Not all fragilistas have ill intentions, and good-hearted efforts to improve the human condition often paradoxically make things worse. As the old cliché goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

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Also from Greg Linster:
Antifragile

Book Review: The Black Swan

Book Review: Fooled By Randomness

Something poorly understood about skeptical philosophers…

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Something poorly understood about skeptical philosophers (Hume, Sextus Empiricus, Huet, Montaigne, Pyrrho & the Pyrrhonian skeptics) is that their skepticism tends to be directed at contemporary experts, rather than traditions, which they tend to follow as a default strategy. And the crowds against which they stand up are the crowds of “experts”, or the masses infatuated with “expert” driven ideas.

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[ Note 1- This is in response to a question by Adam Gurri who was wondering whether there was an inconsistency between being independent and skeptical, yet respecting the “inner” information in the time-tested thanks to the Lindy Effect.]

[Note 2- The “skeptics” of today do the exact opposite: an agglomeration of “light” intellectuals going against traditions but not against experts.]

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