Reading "Antifragile" now

January 22, 2017 11:59pm CST
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I'm only through with the first part, but here's the general skinny: Antifragility is the opposite of fragility. When things are fragile, they break easily when subjected to stress or chaos. Antifragile things do the opposite - become stronger (which is a step beyond mere robustness or resilience, qualities which only resist damage but don't result in an improvement). Taleb applies this concept across a variety of domains - economics, biology, psychology. And, oh my god, is this book *funny*. I've never laughed so hard at an academic book. This guy's writing style is SO snarky, whether it's taking shots at the "Harvard-Soviet consensus" with it's emphasis on rigid centralized planning which bakes fragility into our social systems or using his fictional character Fat Tony, a tough-talking Brooklynite, as an expositor of philosophical theory. I was attracted to this title because I liked the idea of having such a positive response to adversity, something I'm no stranger to, and I haven't been disappointed. I'll have more to say about this once I'm finished reading it, but for now I just wanted to give it shout out as a book which is (so far) well worth reading.
1 response
@maezee (41997)
• United States
23 Jan 17
This sounds like an interesting book. May have to check it out!
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