Some of Taleb’s advice is solidly practical. If you’re interested in a high-risk career such as acting, he suggests using “the barbell strategy” by pursuing acting along with another stable career, like accounting, thereby exposing yourself to maximum positive risk. In the worst-case scenario, you’re a respectable accountant engaged in the local theater scene; at best, a superstar actor who never had to starve.

In the realm of science, he applauds aimless research and the all-important happy accident, arguing that we often squash the potential of randomness because researchers study increasingly narrow fields. “Knowledge, or what is called ‘knowledge,’ in complex domains inhibits research.

“But readers will only digest these sizable granules of wisdom if they can stomach Taleb himself. His Everest-sized ego gives the book the tone of a brilliant dinner party guest off his meds.

via Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘Antifragile’ dares us to expect the unexpected: Book review – latimes.com.

2. Antifragile: Things that Gain From Disorder by Nassim Taleb copy sent me by author. Full of original ideas. It may be unprecedented that a serious thinker so anti-establishment has so loud a voice. Much of the book is about a generalization of hormesis, the observation that a small amount of Treatment X can be beneficial even though a large amount of Treatment X is deadly. For example, a small amount of smoking is probably good for you. Taleb goes beyond this to say that in some things, the hormetic benefit the benefit from small amounts is much larger than in other similar things. You can fulfill the same function governance, banking, science with a system where the entities benefit a lot from small shocks which Taleb calls “anti-fragile” or a system where the entities benefit not at all from small shocks. Systems where small shocks cause benefits tend to suffer less when exposed to large shocks.

via Seth’s Blog » Blog Archive » Best Books of the Year 2012.
HatTip to Dave Lull