Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Taleb has made quite a name for himself with "The Black Swan" and the very public fights that he has had with the establishment in Finance and Economics. This book was released with a lot of fanfare and opened to mixed reviews. Michiko Kakutani from the New York Times, conceded that many of "Taleb's observations can be thought provoking", but also added that in many instances they "are no more than personal opinions". Given the hard time I had reading "Black Swan" I was not very inclined to suffer with another one of Taleb's maniacal rants on the establishment. Then I happened to stumble upon Taleb's talk at Google and was intrigued by his definition of "Antifragility" and wanted to learn more about it.
Let's first start with the word "Fragile". It conjures up images of glass or porcelain. Things that will shatter and be destroyed if they are manhandled. "Antifragility" on the other hand, is used to describe something that gets better with rough handling. Evolution is anti-fragile. A marathon runner's training regimen, where he/she alternates between long runs and short runs and hills and flat terrain is another example of anti-fragility. Taleb postulates that many natural systems are anti-fragile. He argues about the general notion that there is order and benefit to systems in chaos. In contrast, something that is regular is likely to have a large negative impact if it were to get off the rails.
Taleb takes aim at many folks who have made a name for themselves in fields of finance, economics, education, journalism and medicine. There's a large section on the iatrogenics of the medical profession. The whole discussion can be summarized in a couple of sentences. Taleb strongly recommends medical intervention only for serious conditions. He believes that the harmful side effects of medication are likely to be more problematic than the direct benefits you expect.
Taleb is too obsessed with his own perfection, whether it is his eating regimen, his workout, or his lifestyle. A little humility would have gone a long way in making the book more appealing to the reader. What he doesn't realize is that his book reads like a commentary; something he derides in the book. If he truly followed his own advice, he would have written the book with more skin in the game and described his life and ways in which he is following this own philosophy. It would have certainly been more authentic - a quality he regards very highly.
He does have a general sense of mathematical theory. However the book falls far short of any rigorous treatment or development of concepts. As on page 416 in the Chapter on Ethics of Fragility and Antifragility, Taleb loves to say "This is a bit technical, so the reader can skip this section with no loss". There's hardly anything rigorous in these sections. All it means is that there is more speculation, but with the gratuitous use of the word "convexity", "non-linearity" or "fat tails" with some numbers and graphs thrown in for good measure.
Notwithstanding all the above, the book does have some very interesting examples and will make you examine many of your everyday actions with the lens of anti-fragility.
Taleb has made quite a name for himself with "The Black Swan" and the very public fights that he has had with the establishment in Finance and Economics. This book was released with a lot of fanfare and opened to mixed reviews. Michiko Kakutani from the New York Times, conceded that many of "Taleb's observations can be thought provoking", but also added that in many instances they "are no more than personal opinions". Given the hard time I had reading "Black Swan" I was not very inclined to suffer with another one of Taleb's maniacal rants on the establishment. Then I happened to stumble upon Taleb's talk at Google and was intrigued by his definition of "Antifragility" and wanted to learn more about it.
Let's first start with the word "Fragile". It conjures up images of glass or porcelain. Things that will shatter and be destroyed if they are manhandled. "Antifragility" on the other hand, is used to describe something that gets better with rough handling. Evolution is anti-fragile. A marathon runner's training regimen, where he/she alternates between long runs and short runs and hills and flat terrain is another example of anti-fragility. Taleb postulates that many natural systems are anti-fragile. He argues about the general notion that there is order and benefit to systems in chaos. In contrast, something that is regular is likely to have a large negative impact if it were to get off the rails.
Taleb takes aim at many folks who have made a name for themselves in fields of finance, economics, education, journalism and medicine. There's a large section on the iatrogenics of the medical profession. The whole discussion can be summarized in a couple of sentences. Taleb strongly recommends medical intervention only for serious conditions. He believes that the harmful side effects of medication are likely to be more problematic than the direct benefits you expect.
Taleb is too obsessed with his own perfection, whether it is his eating regimen, his workout, or his lifestyle. A little humility would have gone a long way in making the book more appealing to the reader. What he doesn't realize is that his book reads like a commentary; something he derides in the book. If he truly followed his own advice, he would have written the book with more skin in the game and described his life and ways in which he is following this own philosophy. It would have certainly been more authentic - a quality he regards very highly.
He does have a general sense of mathematical theory. However the book falls far short of any rigorous treatment or development of concepts. As on page 416 in the Chapter on Ethics of Fragility and Antifragility, Taleb loves to say "This is a bit technical, so the reader can skip this section with no loss". There's hardly anything rigorous in these sections. All it means is that there is more speculation, but with the gratuitous use of the word "convexity", "non-linearity" or "fat tails" with some numbers and graphs thrown in for good measure.
Notwithstanding all the above, the book does have some very interesting examples and will make you examine many of your everyday actions with the lens of anti-fragility.
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