Antifragile

In The Black Swan, Taleb showed that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In his new book Antifragile, he provides a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Standing uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, Taleb 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. The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine, in Taleb’s uniquely interdisciplinary and erudite style.

At the RSA, Nassim Taleb will show how the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events, and will consider a number of critical questions, such as: why is the city-state better than the nation-state; why is debt bad for you; why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all; and why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak?

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http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=627888534 Tomas Mac Donncha
no insult intended. I’m and Irish atheist and I live in Vietnam which isn’t the friendliest or most enlightened place on Earth. So, might both have felt uncomfortable at times.
I think we agree that the entrepreneurial spirit is central. Great ideas that have come at the right time have been central to the progress of human society: the internet; finance; electricity; farming etc. None of these advances were assured. Both through creative thinking and risk-taking, humans have overcome adversity.
An idea needs to be driven forward in order to succeed, and all entrepreneurs want success in some fashion. Be it financial, personal or otherwise, their idea of success is their driving force. In situations where the possibility of individual success is hindered, societies stagnate. Society needs change, needs creativity. Creative people should be rewarded and financial gain is often a spur for people to be creative.
Creativity doesn’t stop at the invention of an idea, a machine, etc. It needs to be honed and adapted for use in different situations. The possibility for financial reward gives a reason for dissemination and diversification. It is a tool that we use, not the end itself, though where one begins and other ends is terribly blurred I’ll admit. I am a teacher and absolutely against money-making for the sake of it. I always tell the students that they should leave the world in a better place than which they found it. Despite what we might imagine their priorities to be – teen pop, candy, etc – they are generally receptive.
Actually we do celebrate inventors – think Einstein Gutenberg Franklin, Darwin. These names will last a lot longer than the Rupert Mordochs or Warren Buffetts.
Wayne Siemund
I suspect this was a lecture and discussion on risk management science. It seems like bits and pieces were missing so it makes it difficult to follow along. The lecturer’s poor enunciation skills didn’t help.
If expanded on, I suspect the topic would have been far more interesting. I can see where policy makers in government and in business could benefit from incorporating this risk management science into their thinking if it was presented in a manner they could understand.
wald0
The Internet was created by the government, sort of- it was a military communications project adapted by scientists at CERN and then molded by countless hands into what it presently is. I hardly think you can credit entrepreneurs for it. Anyway, your “greed is good” Gordon Gecko flash back doesn’t impress me at all. I think scientists/inventors deserve the praise we too often give to the people that simply bank roll the real ideas. Does anything get done without either of them, no. I realize finance is necessary, I never meant to imply it wasn’t. But it isn’t were the real game is in my opinion, the real game is in the science and invention that forms the idea, innovation, or technology being bank rolled. These are the people we should celebrate. It would help teach a much better moral lesson to our youth if they saw our society praising and celebrating reason and critical thinking over the mere ability to shift capital around in creative ways and make a quick buck. Every science major takes a huge risk, and our pay off if we are successful is a simple weekly pay check that barely supports our family.
Don’t insult me by insinuating I haven’t taken risks- i am a chem major working as a research chemist at a local community college, an atheist, and used to be married to a black woman- and I live in Alabama. I could tell you a thing or two about risks I think.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=627888534 Tomas Mac Donncha
zoom out Wald0, that is narrow-minded. Though entrepreneurs, of course, have their own interest in mind, other benefits ensue. Do you think your government could have created the internet, the automobile, smart phones etc. ? Before you complain about the greed of entrepreneurs, you should think what they have done for you.
There’s nothing ”dirty” about wanting to do well in life – I think people often complain when it’s someone else doing well. I challenge you to take a risk – remember there are many more unsuccessful entrepreneurs than successful ones – and to make all our lives better.
wald0
didn’t get it- hard to hear at times, and just plain over my head at others. Business, economics finance- just not my cup of tea I suppose. In fact I get kind of upset when they start talking about how entrepreneurs have built our society, how they are to be placed on a pedestal as the “job creators” and given special tax breaks and so forth. Not a single entrepreneur I have ever met gave one sh1t about the country or the citizens that live within. In fact all they did care about, what they were obsessed with rather was making the most possible money by whatever means necessary to do so. If that means selling out their own country or fellow man they are first in line to do so.