
My Favorite Heuristic for Evaluating Relationships: The Antifragile Person - tomhoward
http://taylorpearson.me/the-antifragile-person/
======
spinchange
_The Antifragile person both appreciates being called out and aren’t afraid to
do it to others. They aren’t so insecure_

On twitter, I've watched Taleb seemingly track textual mentions of his name or
book (not @ mentions or hashtags) and then castigate and isnult the ones
saying anything critical. These aren't people addressing him personally or
that he follows, they're randoms microblogging to their handful of followers
that he feels the need to push back against and blast.

------
spikels
I'm no fan of Taleb - simplistic ideas expressed in the most confusing and
least concise way possible. Want to understand his 400+ page book "The Black
Swan" refer to Rumsfeld's single sentence on "unknown unknowns"[1]. However he
does focus on popularly neglected ideas. "Antifragile" is known as "being long
vega" to options traders or perhaps "being flexible" (better words escape me)
to regular people. The idea that change (or volatility) can be a good thing
seems odd at first but is the basis fo almost everything. Think of evolution
without change - not going to happen. Instead we should embrace change and
variation otherwise we will be stuck forever in the same rut. But I guess I
just like change anyway.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns)

~~~
eruditely
Lol. Somehow people like you actually think this of Taleb. To reach people
like you, we have to try other ways other than true substance. If Kahneman one
of the heroes of modern intellectual culture is friends with him and they
receive each other well and he does not agree with your banal analysis of him,
is that not good enough(?). Terrence Tao links to his fourth quadrant
articles, is that man's clout not enough? Mandrelbrot too.

I wonder how people like you get away with such utter mis-characterization of
him? It was how people receive Taleb and Graham that I realized that one
person's true identity doesn't matter and that people like you somehow exist
contraire-chic indeed.

Indeed your post is probably just tribal signalling. Subscribe to his FB, read
his posts, you truly find an incredible man of genius. He can admit to be
human.

I don't know what else to say but when I see stuff like this about him(like
valleywag people probably saw comments on Graham). I cannot think of any other
way other than to plead to the audience that the person they think they see of
Taleb is not what it is, and the commentator above me mislead, or is mis-
leads.

I like how people some-how point to him calling other people idiots is somehow
something outrageous to the point of murder, this is a place of extreme
passivity though. Grothendiek protested vietnam by giving lectures in the
forests while the U.S bombed nearby, Guass was quite stern, etc etc. Genius
comes in variety.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Oh stop. If your entire reason we should listen to someone is based on the
signal-quality of whom he associates with, you have no grounds to tell someone
else they're "just [tribally] signalling (sic)". What bloody tribe is he going
to belong to that he would signal so, the We Hate Making Money tribe?

I'm underinformed on Taleb, but I too share the view that his ideas have less
substance than is necessary to justify two or three full books.

------
lmg643
there are audited returns for NNT's hedge fund floating around on the web.
while his options strategies will make money in the worst year, they bleed
money in all other years. Unfortunately for him, average returns count, and
the fund was shut down.

When i first started out learning about finance - say, 14 years ago - i was
really taken by NNT. he seemed like an unheralded genius. Now that i've read a
lot and understand enough about what he was doing, he seems like a bitter
person who dispenses questionable advice in a nasty fashion. NNT appeals to
financial "outsiders" because it gives a sense of power to think they know
something about the flaws of the insiders.

I would say just about everyone would be better off reading the collected
letters of warren buffett, and forget you ever heard of NNT. and if you want
an interesting unorthodox quant, read eric falkenstein.

~~~
HelloMcFly
> ...his options strategies will make money in the worst year, they bleed
> money in all other years.... average returns count

I'm not an expert in his line of thinking, nor do I currently practice his
method of investing, but isn't his goal to hedge against loss (with potential
for profit from it when it strikes others) rather than maximizing profits on
the whole? I imagine he'd be upset that an "average" would be the ultimate
indicator of the worth of his ideas.

Outside of the practical utility of his investment advice (which is outside of
my interest area, for better or worse), I still think his work deserves one's
attention and would not direct them away from NNT as you have. I'd probably
skip the first book, and I've not read Antifragile yet, but it at least gives
some probably needed context to the modern fixation on normally-distributed
data as evidenced by the simplistic quantification of so many things (e.g.,
the Freakonomics podcast).

But he does speak like a man of dogma, something that always makes me wary.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>I've not read Antifragile yet, but it at least gives some probably needed
context to the modern fixation on normally-distributed data as evidenced by
the simplistic quantification of so many things (e.g., the Freakonomics
podcast).

If you want a man of dogma who's going to criticize the overuse of normal
distributions to generate illusorily "informative" statistics, I think you'd
be better off with E.T. Jaynes.

~~~
HelloMcFly
I've read E.T. Jaynes. Also good, but _way_ less approachable (or affordable,
which matters for recommendations and for their relevance to the public). They
scratch different itches for different audiences, even if their "enemy" is the
same.

------
hashbanged
I have a criticism. I think most people are not fit to criticize the vast
majority of the people they interact with. You are not a mindreader and who
the hell are you to judge a stranger or acquaintance in some meaningful way?

If you think you're offending 95% of the people you talk to, then maybe that's
some feedback you should consider.

~~~
wonderzombie
This also reminds me of the quote from Heinlein:

 _Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear.
Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub
together. Often the very young, the untravelled, the naive, the
unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or
"dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they
thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best._

------
freshhawk
"And that’s what Antifragile people do. They accept that most of what they do
will fail. Most of what they say, think and believe will be wrong. And yet
they keep going – doing, saying , believing, and being wrong."

Isn't turning this into the cliche "fail fast, fail often, succeed in the end"
still missing the point? As is trying to apply the principle to an individual?

It's about encouraging high levels of risk taking because of it's benefit to
society as a whole even though the individuals involved are accepting a path
with an irrational risk/reward balance.

So an "antifragile person" would do these types of things knowing that they
should expect to die less successful than if they had taken another path, but
they do it anyway and if enough people do it the result is that society
benefits.

------
gwern
Sad. Taleb has turned another person into a douche like him.

~~~
eruditely
Please. I expect better from you of all people. It sucks being young and
seeing two opposing intellectual heroes or sides at each other, yeah sure he
is not on the side(or my side in the end) of the LW/OB crowd of
AI/Modification etc etc, but it's not true, he's not like that.

What's worse is that at times I actually wondered "I wonder what gwern thinks
of Taleb's xyz, or Hanson of Nassim's abc." Your post only further contributes
to my melancholy.

~~~
gwern
He's not like that? You mean aside from everything he's ever written, every
interview of his I've read, his Twitter activity, and so on and so forth?

> I wonder what gwern thinks of Taleb's xyz

I'll save you some time: Taleb is a pundit who has forgotten all the truths he
learned about randomness, who makes shallow analogies (to take the last one I
remember which irritated me: muscles are anti-fragile? Uh, no, they're
optimized for minimizing resource usage and that's why exercising stops them
from underperforming and produces illusory 'anti-fragileness'; put real stress
on them and you'll get something like rhabdomyolysis), whose financial ideas
seem to have been refuted in practice without any acknowledgement by him of
this. And his personal style destroys any possibility of meaningful discussion
with him: he lives in a world where he is surrounded by sycophants or fools.
If he is right about anything, it'll be the usual stopped-clock thing; just
like Seth Roberts, his methods do not allow him to regularly arrive at truth,
and so unless one plans to investigate his claims in detail, he is better
avoided since he is a good writer who is good enough to fool a great many
people with ideas which, if implemented, will predictably make them worse off
on average. OP is an example of this: he says he has learned an abrasive
personality style from Taleb, which is not going to make his life better.

------
001sky
Its an interesting question--whether we are producing these types or their
opposite in greater numbers. When taking risk and failing becomes fetishized,
is it still actually 'risky'? Most people on wall street take exceptional
risks--but with very little downside to their personal social status and often
none of their own money. So, in a sense working for a big shop is 'risky', but
in another it is one of the most conservative of paths.

~~~
Exenith
Well, of course you are going to get majorities of risky (or even careful)
people in particular subsets of society (e.g. Wall Street, Silicon Valley).
However, I find people in general have always gotten upset when it comes to
criticism. I find myself getting upset when it comes to criticism, even though
"antifragile" is my tendency and ideal. I just don't think most people are
wired to take harsh criticism and big risks. Wonder if there are studies out
there on the matter?

------
eruditely
For this thread I have one thing. To the negative mentions of Taleb, I ask for
you to judge FOR YOURSELF in his entirety the man's character for it is
misrepresented a lot. Just like Graham in valleywag.

tl;dr A lot of his work is dismissed by high-tier to the bottom to middle of
the top tier intellectuals, but if you note his contact with top top tier, it
is well received. The bottom to middle of the top tier being people Less Wrong
type people who read Kahneman, whereas Taleb actually knows and is friends
with Kahneman, knew Mandrelbrot etc etc.

"It's weird. Just last night, actually, in bed, Jessica was saying, "Why does
everybody hate us so much? Why is everyone trying to attack us?" I explained
that reputation is potential energy." \- Graham's essay response to women in
tech incident.

It's like the people of the online community want only one personality type,
passive, ultra-kind etc etc. Taleb just isn't like that.

You can disagree with him/some of the things he says and still appreciate his
place in the intellectual sphere of today and history. It's like at a family
wedding where two brothers just get mad at each other, but it's not 'hate'.
It's just 'oh you guys'.

If you had to say modern intellectual discourse as Light side vs Dark side.
Taleb is the "Thug side", but don't let the contrarian-chic of HN let you be
fooled, he actually has legitimate substance and IS relevant.

[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/mandelbrotandhudson.pdf](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/mandelbrotandhudson.pdf)
, an essay by him dedicated to Mandrelbrot.

[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/DerivTBS.htm](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/DerivTBS.htm)
>\- Technical work dedicated to his ideas.

If he's good enough for Kahneman, his idea's relevant enough for Terrence Tao.
How come the oh contraire crowd here dismisses him so lightly(?)

[http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm)
, there's a lot to him. The way I see randoms talk about Graham & Taleb really
colored the way I see public individuals. If you're public, they'll try to
character assassinate you as best as possible.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Shut up with the celebrity intellectuals already, and show Taleb's record of
technical publications. His work will either speak for itself, and/or you can
stop pimping for him.

(And if you're wondering why I'm being such a dick to you: it's because I'm
from academia, where your published research is everything, your books and
personality-cult for popular consumption nothing. Academia's motto: show us
how you got your answers and submit to replication, or we will throw you out.)

