Antifragile

Things That Gain from Disorder

De: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Narrado por: Joe Ochman

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, and The Bed of Procrustes.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.

Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.

In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and 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.

Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. 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 loud and clear.

Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.

Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.

Includes a bonus PDF of supplemental charts and graphics

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

Praise for Antifragile

“Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist

“A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

“Revelatory . . . [Taleb] pulls the reader along with the logic of a Socrates.”—Chicago Tribune

“Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides . . . I will have to read it again. And again.”—Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal

“Trenchant and persuasive . . . Taleb’s insatiable polymathic curiosity knows no bounds. . . . You finish the book feeling braver and uplifted.”—New Statesman

“Antifragility isn’t just sound economic and political doctrine. It’s also the key to a good life.”—Fortune

“At once thought-provoking and brilliant.”—Los Angeles Times

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist

“A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

“Revelatory . . . [Taleb] pulls the reader along with the logic of a Socrates.”—Chicago Tribune

“Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides . . . I will have to read it again. And again.”—Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal

“Trenchant and persuasive . . . Taleb’s insatiable polymathic curiosity knows no bounds. . . . You finish the book feeling braver and uplifted.”—New Statesman

“Antifragility isn’t just sound economic and political doctrine. It’s also the key to a good life.”—Fortune

“At once thought-provoking and brilliant.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Taleb] writes as if he were the illegitimate spawn of David Hume and Rev. Bayes, with some DNA mixed in from Norbert Weiner and Laurence Sterne. . . . Taleb is writing original stuff—not only within the management space but for readers of any literature—and . . . you will learn more about more things from this book and be challenged in more ways than by any other book you have read this year. Trust me on this.”—Harvard Business Review

“By far my favorite book among several good ones published in 2012. In addition to being an enjoyable and interesting read, Taleb’s new book advances general understanding of how different systems operate, the great variation in how they respond to unthinkables, and how to make them more adaptable and agile. His systemic insights extend very well to company-specific operational issues—from ensuring that mistakes provide a learning process to the importance of ensuring sufficient transparency to the myriad of specific risk issues.”—Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of PIMCO, Bloomberg

Great, until his conclusions

What did you love best about Antifragile?

I think his description of the "State of the World" is quite good. It fails in it's conclusions though.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The "present day assessment" rang mostly true.

What about Joe Ochman’s performance did you like?

I like how he captures the voice of the author. It adds a nice familiarity to it.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

How someone I highly respect can still turn out to be deeply flawed. See next section.

Any additional comments?

More of a negative note here: Over the previous books I developed a huge respecte for Taleb. I found myself also nodding along quite a lot with what he described as the state of the world, but where he lost me was in his conclusions and interpretations.

Just two reasons.

He rightfully admires "the ancients" (Romans, Greek) for their philosophical accomplishment. Having read Lucrecius "The Nature of things" I was in similar awe and surprise. Having said that, to extend their philosophical accomplishments into that of modern science strikes me as ludicrous.

The second thing is one specific example: He writes about how can't we know that eating three solid meals doesn't have any benefits (in comparison to the recent recommendation to "graze" instead of stuffing yourself three times a day). The problem with this argument is that the three meals a day are falling back onto the industrial age, when life and time started to be dominated by the clock, not human nature. This flies straight into the face of his own assertion that he doesn't eat anything that isn't at least 2000 years old (I could now ask why 2000 years? But that's just nitpicking) because everything since then is "tainted".

I admit, it makes me a bit sad to have gotten the impression that Taleb is a bit of a Neo-Luddite.

This is a really great book

This book guides very through many things that benifit through chaos. i still havent figured out how to download the pdf with the charts yet. if anyone knows id greatly appreciate it.

Wonderful

Awesome concepts, you do need to be prepared to wade through some of the longest words you have ever heard, told with somewhat of a holier than thou attitude, which is fine because you get the feeling the author cares about his subject.
the last half of the book really has some absolutely wonderful things about being human and living a good life, stand on your own and stand for something- not just a safe, follow the herd, lukewarm life.
The story about icing swelling is one I will never forget. It made me stop and say to myself that I had never thought about that- I just always assumed Doctors knew best.

Thank you Nassim for the book and reading it for audible.

Forceful and fearless

A tour de force in clear thinking and cutting through BS. Thank you for the wonderful education and your through history, ethics, and living a good life!

Are you Robust, Fragile or Anti-fragile?

Worth your money and your time. Good points on how to lead a better life.