Antifragile

Things That Gain from Disorder

By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Narrated by: Joe Ochman

Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a book on how some things actually benefit from disorder.

In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem, and in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what Taleb calls the "antifragile" is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish.

Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is immune to prediction errors. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is everything that is both modern and complicated bound to fail? The audiobook spans innovation by trial and error, health, biology, medicine, life decisions, politics, foreign policy, urban planning, war, personal finance, and economic systems. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are heard loud and clear.

Extremely ambitious and multidisciplinary, Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave - and thrive - in a world we don't understand, and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand and predict. Erudite and witty, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: What is not antifragile will surely perish.

Please note: The bleeps in the audio are intentional and are as written by the author. No material is censored, and no audio content is missing.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2012 Nassim Nicholas Taleb (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[This] is the lesson of Taleb...and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable." (Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point)

"[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne." (The Wall Street Journal)

"The most prophetic voice of all.... [Taleb is] a genuinely significant philosopher...someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone." (GQ)

needs to be read more tha. once

it has lots of information and good advice on dealing with optionality and hearing you life towards being anti-fragile and understanding various dichotomies.

I enjoyed the snark but do wonder at the interplay between the need for "suckers" or the fragile in order to build the anti-fragile.

books is valuable to both work and family life and helping to address ones own position with regards to optionality or lack there of.

Genial

This book was clearly wrote by an genius!

It was great to listen and learn.
Cheers from São Paulo Brasil

only fragilistas won't like it

great read, lots of information, interesting perspective, there's something for everyone. I highly recommend it

Human Progress Is Not A Result of What You Learn in the Classroom

The author questions the status quo in society, which he defines as fragility. Essentially, fragility is the safe and widely accepted way of going through life that is ultimately supposed to lead to success and prosperity. Taleb questions everything about this notion using his own experiences to ultimately conclude that those who are antifragile, meaning they operate with optionality and minimize downside risk to achieve much greater gains. They are entrepreneurs looking to improve things rather than relying on theory to carry them through life. A truly fascinating that will require multiple reads and note-taking.

Super interesting

This book was over my head mostly, but it appears that it may be healthy to be a skeptic of other people in positions to give advice or predict the future. That once should find ways to be antifragile-seek ways to benefit from volatility. Be debt free. Listen to the wisdom of the ancients and religions more than the advice of scientists and economists and bankers trying to sell you a product where they profit no matter what and you take on all the risk.

tldr

execute with upside but test in downside

its a ten plus relisten book worth it

Very relevant for individuals and modern systems.

very relevant for health care, financial systems, education and personal development. we need this.

Outstanding. One of top ten books of my life

Has both validated my intuitions about a number of areas of life and also energized my thinking. Can become a manual for life.

life altering

it's rare to find a book that legitimately changes your entire perspective. this book will open up a whole new paradigm for you

first book I've finished in some time

a masterpiece. if what you're thinking about life doesn't stand up after contemplating it in light of this work, then improve your thoughts and try again.