
Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder – Review - jseliger
http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/
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SiVal
Taleb's writing style is atrocious and his personality obnoxious, but his
fundamental ideas are profoundly interesting and important. At its root is the
idea that we humans don't understand the world we live in, but we think we do.
This is just as true of "intellectuals", whose lack of understanding is merely
better concealed. (Most of Taleb's critics are those, like professors,
government big wigs, mainstream media editors and pundits, and the like, whose
personal power depends on their ability to convince others that they
understand the world better than we do.)

Taleb's books, unlike almost all other "policy" books, isn't about replacing
the bad theories of others with his own correct theories. It is about how best
to live well despite our lack of correct theories. He examines the
implications of this idea in many, MANY areas, and I think he draws the wrong
conclusions some of the time. The needs of his own personality are
omnipresent, which gets very tedious.

But this idea of how to live well in a world nobody understands is a
fascinating, and potentially very valuable, concept to explore. Taleb's books
force me to ponder this question more thoroughly than any others I've read.

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vacri
_At its root is the idea that we humans don 't understand the world we live
in, but we think we do._

This is a false (and needless) dichotomy. We understand it pretty well, but
there's still lots to learn. Some fields more than others.

It's far too trendy to say 'X is a black box and we don't understand it - only
the smart people know that we know nothing', where X is 'the world', 'the
brain', 'economics', or whatever. It promotes anti-intellectualism and
glorifies ignorance.

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skylan_q
_But taxi drivers are interesting example because we’re approaching the point
at which self- driving cars may become common, which would be a major
professional Black Swan for taxi drivers._

He was using the Taxi driver as an allegorical device. His point was that the
taxi driver saw very little job security because of variability of income, and
that others saw him having job security as there would always be a demand for
it. This had nothing to do with the fact that we're talking about taxi drivers
here. Focusing the taxi industry is missing the point he's making.

He says that they would be robust to minor black swans and not major ones.
Then you point out that they would be susceptible to major ones which he was
not in disagreement with.

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lafar6502
Seliger makes strong claims about 'fallacies' in the book, but supports them
only by his opinions on what's true and what's not. Example: he's trying to
persuade us that global warming introduces a risk of a sudden catastrophe, and
it's easy to prevent that. The reality is quite opposite: there's nothing
sudden in the warming process (we're discussing it for 20 years and still some
people deny it exists), and there is no easy way of preventing it.

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Tycho
_In his books Taleb is weirdly reluctant to address global warming and climate
change, which may be the ultimate nonlinear Black Swan system of our age—prone
to sudden shocks that may have catastrophic results. There is a brief mention
of the issue on page 415 of Antifragile, but he doesn’t discuss the issue in
any detail._

Actually I find Taleb's point about not meddling with complex systems much
more persuasive in the AGW debate than the dubious scientific research that
gets churned out.

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SkyMarshal
AGW wouldn't be a black swan by Taleb's definition anyway, which requires it
being completely unpredictable and unforeseen, except in hindsight. Accidental
discoveries, like of penicillin, are his best examples. AGW and its effects
are more like grey swans - somewhat predictable and foreseen.

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Tycho
Hmm, the warming itself might be predictable but the side-effects could be a
different matter.

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paul_f
What warming? There hasn't been any for 10 years.

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altoz
tl;dr liberal intellectual claims criticism about liberal intellectuals and
their friends are invalid.

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PhasmaFelis
OH NOES NOT LIBERAL INTELLECTUALS.

How on earth did we get to the point where calling someone smart is an insult?

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krrrh
I think there's a more subtle point here. Being smart is good, being overly
certain of the ultimate power of reason to solve all problems is something
else. It's also a common Achilles heel of smart people.

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socalnate1
"...but rarely have I read a book with such a correct thesis and so many
misrepresentations, needless ad-hominem attacks, and dubious stories..."

This has always been Taleb's problem. His abrasive personality and latent
narcissism water down an otherwise very worthwhile message.

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ScottBurson
_artisans as a group are never going to be as important as they were in, say,
1700_

Neither Taleb nor Seliger (the reviewer) lists software developers as among
the artisans, but I think they should. Doing so makes the quoted claim wildly
false.

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melloclello
Except every time a computer programmer writes a program, an artisan loses his
job (roughly speaking)

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Agathos
This reads a lot like my reaction to The Black Swan. It's interesting that
Seliger says he really liked that one.

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contextual
In my experience, a salient example of antifragility ("damage" and/or
volatility that makes a system stronger) is Rejection Therapy[1]. Continuous
rejection can actually make you more confident. Rejection gives you answers
faster. It exposes weaknesses and delusional thinking. And getting rejected
feels exhilarating because you've disobeyed your fear and accomplished the
game's objective.

It works the other way too: the less you get rejected, the more you fear it
and the more painful rejection is when it inevitably happens.

[1] [http://rejectiontherapy.com](http://rejectiontherapy.com)

