Anti Fragile

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bestselling Author Of The Black Swan And One Of The Foremost Thinkers Of Our Time, Reveals How To Thrive In An Uncertain World. Just As Human Bones Get Stronger When Subjected To Stress And Tension, Many Things In Life Benefit From Stress, Disorder, Volatility, And Turmoil. What Taleb Has Identified And Calls Antifragile Are Things That Not Only Gain From Chaos But Need It In Order To Survive And Flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb Showed Us That Highly Improbable And Unpredictable Events Underlie Almost Everything About Our World. Here Taleb Stands Uncertainty On Its Head, Making It Desirable, Even Necessary. The Antifragile Is Beyond The Resilient Or Robust. The Resilient Resists Shocks And Stays The Same; The Antifragile Gets Better And Better. What's More, The Antifragile Is Immune To Prediction Errors And Protected From Adverse Events. Why Is The City-state Better Than The Nation-state, Why Is Debt Bad For You, And Why Is What We Call Efficient Not Efficient At All? Why Do Government Responses And Social Policies Protect The Strong And Hurt The Weak? Why Should You Write Your Resignation Letter Before Starting On The Job? How Did The Sinking Of The Titanic Save Lives? The Book Spans Innovation By Trial And Error, Life Decisions, Politics, Urban Planning, War, Personal Finance, Economic Systems And Medicine, Drawing On Modern Street Wisdom And Ancient Sources. Antifragile Is A Blueprint For Living In A Black Swan World. Erudite, Witty, And Iconoclastic, Taleb's Message Is Revolutionary: The Antifragile, And Only The Antifragile, Will Make It. Nassim Nicholas Taleb Has Devoted His Life To Problems Of Uncertainty, Probability, And Knowledge And Has Led Three Careers Around This Focus, As A Businessman-trader, A Philosophical Essayist, And An Academic Researcher. Although He Now Spends Most Of His Time Working In Intense Seclusion In His Study, In The Manner Of Independent Scholars, He Is Currently Distinguished Professor Of Risk Engineering At New York University's Polytechnic Institute. His Main Subject Matter Is Decision Making Under Opacity, That Is, A Map And A Protocol On How We Should Live In A World We Don't Understand. His Books Fooled By Randomness And The Black Swan Have Been Published In Thirty-three Languages. Taleb Believes That Prizes, Honorary Degrees, Awards, And Ceremonialism Debase Knowledge By Turning It Into A Spectator Sport. Title Page Contents Dedication Chapter Summaries and Map BOOK I: THE ANTIFRAGILE: AN INTRODUCTION BOOK II: MODERNITY AND THE DENIAL OF ANTIFRAGILITY BOOK III: A NONPREDICTIVE VIEW OF THE WORLD BOOK IV: OPTIONALITY, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANTIFRAGILITY BOOK V: THE NONLINEAR AND THE NONLINEAR BOOK VI: VIA NEGATIVA BOOK VII: THE ETHICS OF FRAGILITY AND ANTIFRAGILITY Prologue I. HOW TO LOVE THE WIND II. THE ANTIFRAGILE III. THE ANTIDOTE TO THE BLACK SWAN IV. THIS BOOK V. ORGANIZATION APPENDIX: THE TRIAD, OR A MAP OF THE WORLD AND THINGS ALONG THE THREE PROPERTIES Antifragile BOOK I: The Antifragile: An Introduction Chapter 1: Between Damocles and Hydra HALF OF LIFE HAS NO NAME PLEASE BEHEAD ME PROTO-ANTIFRAGILITY DOMAIN INDEPENDENCE IS DOMAIN DEPENDENT Chapter 2: Overcompensation and Overreaction Everywhere HOW TO WIN A HORSE RACE ON THE ANTIFRAGILITY OF RIOTS, LOVE, AND OTHER UNEXPECTED BENEFICIARIES OF STRESS Chapter 3: The Cat and the Washing Machine STRESSORS ARE INFORMATION CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN Chapter 4: What Kills Me Makes Others Stronger ANTIFRAGILITY BY LAYERS THANK YOU, ERRORS WHY THE AGGREGATE HATES THE INDIVIDUAL WHAT DOES NOT KILL ME KILLS OTHERS BOOK II: Modernity and the Denial of Antifragility Chapter 5: The Souk and the Office Building TWO TYPES OF PROFESSIONS BOTTOM-UP VARIATIONS AWAY FROM EXTREMISTAN TWELVE THOUSAND YEARS Chapter 6: Tell Them I Love (Some) Randomness HUNGRY DONKEYS THAT TIME BOMB CALLED STABILITY WHAT DO WE CALL HERE MODERNITY? Chapter 7: Naive Intervention INTERVENTION AND IATROGENICS IN PRAISE OF PROCRASTINATION—THE FABIAN KIND NEUROTICISM IN INDUSTRIAL PROPORTIONS THE STATE CAN HELP—WHEN INCOMPETENT CATALYST-AS-CAUSE CONFUSION Chapter 8: Prediction as a Child of Modernity Ms. Bré Has Competitors The Predictive Plus or Minus Bad Teeth The Idea of Becoming a Non-Turkey No More Black Swans BOOK III: A Nonpredictive View of the World Chapter 9: Fat Tony and the Fragilistas INDOLENT FELLOW TRAVELERS ON SUCKERS AND NONSUCKERS Chapter 10: Seneca’s Upside and Downside Is This Really Serious? Less Downside from Life Stoicism’s Emotional Robustification The Domestication of Emotions How to Become the Master The Foundational Asymmetry Chapter 11: Never Marry the Rock Star ON THE IRREVERSIBILITY OF BROKEN PACKAGES SENECA’S BARBELL BOOK IV: Optionality, Technology, and the Intelligence of Antifragility DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING? Chapter 12: Thales’ Sweet Grapes OPTION AND ASYMMETRY THE THALESIAN AND THE ARISTOTELIAN Chapter 13: Lecturing Birds on How to Fly EPIPHENOMENA Chapter 14: When Two Things Are Not the “Same Thing” THE GREEN LUMBER FALLACY CONFLATION PROMETHEUS AND EPIMETHEUS Chapter 15: History Written by the Losers THE CASE IN MEDICINE THE INVERSE TURKEY PROBLEM THE CHARLATAN, THE ACADEMIC, AND THE SHOWMAN Chapter 16: A Lesson In Disorder THE ECOLOGICAL AND THE LUDIC AN ANTIFRAGILE (BARBELL) EDUCATION Chapter 17: Fat Tony Debates Socrates EUTHYPHRO FAT TONY VERSUS SOCRATES PRIMACY OF DEFINITIONAL KNOWLEDGE THE SUCKER-NONSUCKER DISTINCTION Fragility, Not Probability CONCLUSION TO BOOK IV BOOK V: The Nonlinear and the Nonlinear ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTICS Chapter 18: On the Difference Between a Large Stone and a Thousand Pebbles A SIMPLE RULE TO DETECT THE FRAGILE TRAFFIC IN NEW YORK WHERE MORE IS DIFFERENT SMALL MAY BE UGLY, IT IS CERTAINLY LESS FRAGILE PROJECTS AND PREDICTION WHERE THE “EFFICIENT” IS NOT EFFICIENT Chapter 19: The Philosopher’s Stone and Its Inverse HOW TO DETECT WHO WILL GO BUST HOW TO LOSE A GRANDMOTHER NOW THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE BOOK VI: Via Negativa BARBELLS, AGAIN Chapter 20: Time and Fragility FROM SIMONIDES TO JENSEN LEARNING TO SUBTRACT TO AGE IN REVERSE: THE LINDY EFFECT A FEW MENTAL BIASES ARCHITECTURE AND THE IRREVERSIBLE NEOMANIA TURNING SCIENCE INTO JOURNALISM WHAT SHOULD BREAK PROPHETS AND THE PRESENT EMPEDOCLES’ DOG Chapter 21: Medicine, Convexity, and Opacity HOW TO ARGUE IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM FIRST PRINCIPLE OF IATROGENICS (EMPIRICISM) SECOND PRINCIPLE OF IATROGENICS (NONLINEARITY IN RESPONSE) BURYING THE EVIDENCE NATURE’S OPAQUE LOGIC Chapter 22: To Live Long, but Not Too Long LIFE EXPECTANCY AND CONVEXITY IF IT’S WEDNESDAY, I MUST BE VEGAN BOOK VII: The Ethics of Fragility and Antifragility Chapter 23: Skin in the Game: Antifragility and Optionality at the Expense of Others HAMMURABI THE TALKER’S FREE OPTION THE ANCIENTS AND THE STIGLITZ SYNDROME OPTIONS, ANTIFRAGILITY, AND SOCIAL FAIRNESS THE ANTIFRAGILITY AND ETHICS OF (LARGE) CORPORATIONS Chapter 24: Fitting Ethics to a Profession THE PROFESSIONALS AND THE COLLECTIVE THE ETHICAL AND THE LEGAL BIG DATA AND THE RESEARCHER’S OPTION THE TYRANNY OF THE COLLECTIVE Chapter 25: Conclusion Epilogue: From Resurrection to Resurrection Glossary Appendix I: A Graphical Tour of the Book NONLINEARITY AND LESS IS MORE (& PROCRUSTEAN BED) MAPPING OF FRAGILITIES BARBELL TRANSFORMATION IN TIME SERIES BARBELLS (CONVEX TRANSFORMATIONS) AND THEIR PROPERTIES IN PROBABILITY SPACE TECHNICAL VERSION OF FAT TONY’S “NOT THE SAME ‘TING,’ ” OR THE CONFLATION OF EVENTS AND EXPOSURE TO EVENTS THE FOURTH QUADRANT (TALEB, 2009) LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONVEXITIES (TECHNICAL) FREAK NONLINEARITIES (VERY TECHNICAL) MEDICAL NONLINEARITIES AND THEIR PROBABILITY CORRESPONDENCE (CHAPTERS 21 & 22) THE INVERSE TURKEY PROBLEM DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POINT ESTIMATES AND DISTRIBUTIONS Appendix II (Very Technical): Where Most Economic Models Fragilize and Blow People Up Application: Ricardian Model and Left Tail—The Price of Wine Happens to Vary A More General Methodology to Spot Model Error Fuhgetaboud Small Probabilities Additional Notes, Afterthoughts, and Further Reading Bibiliography Acknowledgments Penguin Story Copyright Page Footnotes Prologue Page 8 Page 10 Page 12 Page 17 BOOK I: The Antifragile: An Introduction Chapter 1: Between Damocles and Hydra Page 32 Page 33 Chapter 2: Overcompensation and Overreaction Everywhere Page 42 Page 44 Page 46 Page 48 Page 52 Chapter 3: The Cat and the Washing Machine Page 55 Page 60 Page 64 Chapter 4: What Kills Me Makes Others Stronger Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 78 Page 79 BOOK II: Modernity and the Denial of Antifragility Page 82 Chapter 5: The Souk and the Office Building Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 97 Page 98 Chapter 6: Tell Them I Love (Some) Randomness Page 101 Page 107 Chapter 7: Naive Intervention Page 122 Page 123 Page 130 Chapter 8: Prediction as a Child of Modernity Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 BOOK III: A Nonpredictive View of the World Chapter 9: Fat Tony and the Fragilistas Page 150 Chapter 10: Seneca’s Upside and Downside Page 153 Page 157 CHAPTER 11: Never Marry the Rock Star Page 163 Page 166 Book IV: Optionality, Technology, and the Intelligence of Antifragility Chapter 12: Thales’ Sweet Grapes Page 176 Page 181 Page 183 Chapter 13: Lecturing Birds on How to Fly Page 198 Chapter 14: When Two Things Are Not the “Same Thing” Page 206 Page 209 Page 215 Chapter 15: History Written by the Losers Page 217 Page 220 Page 225 Page 227 Page 230 Page 239 Chapter 17: Fat Tony Debates Socrates Page 250 Page 255 Page 258 Page 262 Book V: The Nonlinear and the Nonlinear Page 263 Page 264 Chapter 18: On the Difference Between a Large Stone and a Thousand Pebbles Page 271 Page 282 Page 283 Page 287 Chapter 19: The Philosopher’s Stone and Its Inverse Page 292 Page 296 Page 297 Page 299 BOOK VI: Via Negativa7 Page 307 Page 308 Chapter 20: Time and Fragility Page 316 Page 317 Page 318 Page 319 Page 320 Page 332 Chapter 21: Medicine, Convexity, and Opacity Page 340 Page 343 Page 346 Page 349 Chapter 22: To Live Long, but Not Too Long Page 358 Page 359 Page 363 Page 364 Page 366 Page 367 Book VII: The Ethics of Fragility and Antifragility Chapter 23: Skin in the Game: Antifragility and Optionality at the Expense of Others Page 387 Page 388 Page 391 Page 399 Page 405 Chapter 24: Fitting Ethics to a Profession Page 417 Appendix II (Very Technical): Where Most Economic Models Fragilize and Blow People Up Page 451 Page 455 Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don't understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call "efficient" not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it provider's description "The acclaimed author of the influential bestseller The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb takes a next big step with a deceptively simple concept: the "antifragile." Like the Greek hydra that grows two heads for each one it loses, people, systems, and institutions that are antifragile not only withstand shocks, they benefit from them. In a modern world dominated by chaos and uncertainty, Antifragile is a revolutionary vision from one of the most subversive and important thinkers of our time. Praise for Nicholas Nassim Taleb "[This] is the lesson of Taleb. and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable."--Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point "[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne."--The Wall Street Journal "The most prophetic voice of all. [Taleb is] a genuinely significant philosopher. someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone."--GQ "Changed my view of how the world works."--Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate"-- "Examples of Antifragility: When you stress your body by lifting a big weight, your body gets stronger. New York has the best restaurants in the world because particular restaurants are always going bust, making the aggregate stronger and stronger, or antifragile. Evolution is antifragile. Certain business and investment strategies are antifragile. Older things tend to be more antifragile than newer ones - because they've been exposed to more Black Swans"-- 'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West Tough times don't last. Tough people do. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. Here Taleb stands uncer­tainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resil­ient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls antifragile are things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: the antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. 'The hottest thinker in the world' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times