That's the Times review of Taleb's new book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder coming out in two weeks - November 27th.
Saudi Arabia looks stable because the government never changes. But when it does, expect the change to be violent and traumatic. An individual does not achieve health by the paranoid avoidance of "stressors" such as fear, hunger, germs and exhaustion. In fact, the body addles when it is deprived of hormesis (the strengthening process that follows an endurable amount of stress). Conclusion: "no stability without volatility". Taleb has long argued that modern finance generates instability by artificially constraining natural volatility. In Taleb;s ideal world, banks should go bust without damaging the rest of the sector - as restaurants do.
Antifragile broadens and extends the logic he used in The Black Swan and applies to everyday living. So how we can make our lives more antifragile? First stop bringing up children in a sealed vacuum of frantic social ambition.
From parenting to diplomacy: instead of trying to predict everything, we should take more antifragile position of acknowledging uncertainty. The US spends a fortune trying to monitor and "predict" what will happen in Arab world - and yet entirely missed the Arab uprising. This is not just money wasted but the construction of false confidence based on an erroneous focus.
Saudi Arabia looks stable because the government never changes. But when it does, expect the change to be violent and traumatic. An individual does not achieve health by the paranoid avoidance of "stressors" such as fear, hunger, germs and exhaustion. In fact, the body addles when it is deprived of hormesis (the strengthening process that follows an endurable amount of stress). Conclusion: "no stability without volatility". Taleb has long argued that modern finance generates instability by artificially constraining natural volatility. In Taleb;s ideal world, banks should go bust without damaging the rest of the sector - as restaurants do.
Antifragile broadens and extends the logic he used in The Black Swan and applies to everyday living. So how we can make our lives more antifragile? First stop bringing up children in a sealed vacuum of frantic social ambition.
From parenting to diplomacy: instead of trying to predict everything, we should take more antifragile position of acknowledging uncertainty. The US spends a fortune trying to monitor and "predict" what will happen in Arab world - and yet entirely missed the Arab uprising. This is not just money wasted but the construction of false confidence based on an erroneous focus.
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