Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There are ample empirical findings to the effect that providing someone with a random numerical forecast increases his risk taking, even if the person knows the projections are random.

There is another dimension to the need to focus on actions and avoid words: the health-eroding dependence on external recognition. People are cruel and unfair in the way they confer recognition, so it is best to stay out of that game. Stay robust to how others treat you.

the key phrase reverberating in Seneca’s oeuvre is nihil perditi, “I lost nothing,” after an adverse event.

invest in good actions. Things can be taken away from us—not good deeds and acts of virtue.

As Publilius Syrus wrote, nothing can be done both hastily and safely—almost nothing.

Indeed, the most severe mistake made in life is to mistake the unintelligible for the unintelligent—something Nietzsche figured out.

may be a natural property of technology to only want to be displaced by itself.

if that something has been around for a very, very long time, then, irrational or not, you can expect it to stick around much longer, and outlive those who call for its demise.

Everything gains or loses from volatility. Fragility is what loses from volatility and uncertainty.

Fundamental Asymmetry (also Seneca’s Asymmetry): When someone has more upside than downside in a certain situation, he is antifragile and tends to gain from (a) volatility, (b) randomness, (c) errors, (d) uncertainty, (e) stressors, (f) time. And the reverse.

Hormesis: A bit of a harmful substance, or stressor, in the right dose or with the right intensity, stimulates the organism and makes it better, stronger, healthier, and prepared for a stronger dose the next exposure. (Think of bones and karate.)

Turkey and Inverse Turkey: The turkey is fed by the butcher for a thousand days, and every day the turkey pronounces with increased statistical confidence that the butcher “will never hurt it”—until Thanksgiving, which brings a Black Swan revision of belief for the turkey. The inverse turkey error is the mirror confusion, not seeing opportunities—pronouncing that one has evidence that someone digging for gold or searching for cures will “never find” anything.

Via negativa: In theology and philosophy, the focus on what something is not, an indirect definition. In action, it is a recipe for what to avoid, what not to do—subtraction, not addition, say, in medicine.