Tag Archives: book review

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Getting Stronger through Stress: Making Black Swans Work for You

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In this context, his perspective is very consistent with the critique of modern push systems that I (and my co-authors) developed in The Power of Pull. Push systems are driven by two concerns: the ability to forecast or predict events and the quest for increasing efficiency by designing systems that are highly standardized and tightly specified to remove any unnecessary activity – everything is arranged to be in the right place at the right time to meet anticipated demand. Scalable efficiency is the ultimate goal.

Virtually all of our contemporary institutions – firms, educational institutions and government – have been designed as push systems. While these systems tend to prosper in highly stable times, they do very poorly in times of rapid change and growing uncertainty. They become highly vulnerable to Black Swans, setting cascades and avalanches into motion that amplify and extend the disruptive effects of the initial event. By seeking to remove unpredictability, we are actually becoming more fragile. As Taleb observes: “When you are fragile, you depend on things following the exact planned course, with as little deviation as possible – for deviations are more harmful than helpful. This is why the fragile needs to be very predictive in its approach, and, conversely, predictive systems cause fragility.”

via Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Getting Stronger through Stress: Making Black Swans Work for You.

The importance of being antifragile | Bjørn Stærk

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Antifragility is the opposite of this, a condition where the potential downside is limited, but the upside is unlimited. A situation where things will probably go badly, but only a little badly, and in the best case they will go really well. An everyday example is that you ask someone out for a date. The worst, and most likely, outcome is that they decline, which is sad but no disaster. But the best outcome is that you will find someone to spend the rest of your life with.
Or let’s say you write a novel. The worst, and most likely, outcome is that you will have wasted your time, because nobody wants to read it. Again, this is sad, but no disaster. You’ve lost time and effort, but it is a limited loss. But the best possible outcome is practically unlimited: That you will have written the next Harry Potter or Fifty Shades of Grey.
Antifragility is frightening, but the fact that the downside is more probable is outweighed by the fact that the upside is so wonderful.

via The importance of being antifragile | Bjørn Stærk.

Philip Cross: Let’s celebrate risk | Financial Post

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The antifragile viewpoint prefers age-tested heuristics to technology based on the scientific method. More specifically, it is deeply skeptical about school-based education compared with uncodifiable, intuitive, or experience-based knowledge. As the noted philosopher Yogi Berra said, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is.”

This is why economic models failed during the 2008 meltdown. As an example of how necessity is the best teacher, Taleb argues the fastest way to learn a foreign language is spending a month in jail with people who speak that tongue.

The obsession of economists with the very top and bottom of the income distribution is ironic, as Taleb’s fundamental point is that they don’t properly weigh the “tail risks” at the extreme ends of the probability distribution for highly-disruptive events. Growing income inequality in the U.S. is heralded as a positive sign of an increasing number “of risk-takers crazy enough to have ideas of their own,” striving to create wealth and produce innovations that ultimately benefit all.

Taleb proposes a National Entrepreneur Day to celebrate risk-takers, especially the large number who fail and thereby point the way for others to succeed. Ruined entrepreneurs should be treated by society with almost the same reverence shown for dead soldiers. This shows how the antifragility of a system like the economy requires fragility in its parts — the same idea of learning from mistakes is why airplane safety improves with every crash.

via Philip Cross: Let’s celebrate risk | FP Comment | Financial Post.

» 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.”

via » Book Review: Antifragile Coffee Theory.

Also from Greg Linster:
Antifragile

Book Review: The Black Swan

Book Review: Fooled By Randomness

Sorry Nassim Taleb, Technology Actually Does Matter – Forbes

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Reader, Jon, who sent this along, comments, “…a great example of someone that just does not get NNT’s message… not malicious simply misguided”. Agreed!

Nassim Taleb, in his new book Antifragile, is so derisive of technology that he refers to tech enthusiasm as a condition – “Neomania” – and argues that much of the progress we get excited about isn’t really progress at all.

He gleefully points out that we continue to wear shoes, eat with silverware, drink wine, beer and coffee and do many other things that have been around for thousands of years and notes that while these old technologies has been tested by time, new technology is prone to failure.

via Sorry Nassim Taleb, Technology Actually Does Matter – Forbes.