Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Autodidact Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written an impressively disjointed, jumbled and boring mess of a book. Like a boring dinner guest, halfway through the reading, I went into a skim mode of topics...but it only became more clear that Taleb ellides anything meaningful. His stories are not fleshed with detail, only hookup meme subject lines, and pop-culture provocations.
If I were to take anything away from this book...it's that risk is a critical component to a meaningful life. And we often limit ourselves to a narrow slice of the life we think we deserve.
Take a risk, find a better book.
If I were to take anything away from this book...it's that risk is a critical component to a meaningful life. And we often limit ourselves to a narrow slice of the life we think we deserve.
Take a risk, find a better book.
Ultimately an enjoyable Taleb work with a number of well written, clever insights about risk management and systems that benefit from chaos.
This book has been such a disappointment...
It started absolutely great and has an idea (antifragility) that is worthy and notable and interesting. Wait, let me back up from the beginning: I could not finish this book.
When I read non fiction I tend to stick to certain rules:
1) I want to learn from the books I read. I tend not to read Mathematics, for example, except in formal context, since normally when I read Math being exposed to the general public I noticed how poorly they are really explaining the concepts.
2) I don't read books if I agree with the conclusion. For example, since I am an atheist, I seldom read books on the subject of why we should be atheists, I enjoy the rest of Richard Dawkins works.
3) I refused to be bored. Despite the previous points I do not read books on astrology, for example, because I am certain they will not convince me of their truth (I won't learn from them), but even more certain I will find them utterly and completely boring.
This book started as an amazing jewel. A book where I was reaching for the, thankfully virtual, dictionary almost in every page. When I read the page, almost at the beginning of the book, that said:
"Now we aim--after some work--to connect in the reader's mind, with a single thread, elements seemingly far apart, such as Cato the Elder, Nietzsche, Thales of Miletus, the potency of the system of city-states, the sustainability of artisans, the process of discovery, the onesidedness of opacity, financial derivatives, antibiotic resistance, bottom-up systems, Socrates' invitation to overrationalize, how to lecture birds, obsessive love, Darwinian evolution, the mathematical concept of Jensen's inequality, optionality and option theory, the idea of ancestral heuristics, the works of Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke, Wittgenstein's antirationalism, the fraudulent theories of the economics establishment, tinkering and bricolage, terrorism exacerbated by death of its members, an apologia for artisanal societies, the ethical flaws of the middle class, Paleo-style workouts (and nutrition), the idea of medical iatrogenics, the glorious notion of the magnificent (megalopsychon), my obsession with the idea of convexity (and my phobia of concavity), the late-2000s banking and economic crisis, the misunderstanding of redundancy, the difference between tourist and flâneur, etc. All in one single--and, I am certain, simple--thread."
I thought I was in for the biggest treat in reading since Wittgenstein.
Alas, though the book starts in a wonderful way and the idea of antifragility is an amazing idea, at some point you realize something is happening. At first, the author criticizes pseudo scientificism, then stars swearing for Baal. That is followed by an exposition of the trivial truth that there are options outside finance that are poorly priced, as if that was a hidden, previously unknown idea. And finally, around the middle of the book, he dismisses science all together. He claims, and, unfortunately, fails to prove, that science does not produce most of the technological (and others? Not clear) innovations through history. He does this through the simple method of claiming we got it backwards, then claiming that in some cases some people claim we got it backwards, then admitting that there may be a few cases where we got it right, but that those are not important. All this starts with some academicians giving birds lectures on how to fly... Before you continue reading this review, may I remind you again that I could not finish this book? It became boring. Furthermore, if you agree with the author, I should point out that I am, of course, a sworn enemy of what he exposes, having a PhD in mathematics and all. Never lectured birds though, just taught some calculus and functional analysis to non flying human beings.
Case in point. He claims Euclid results aren't used in Architecture. Then admits that the Pythagorean Theorem is used somewhat in architecture. Who has claim Euclid was central to architecture is not clear... But this represents an ignorance of what Euclid did. He was formalizing previous knowledge. This knowledge was not all original, though some was. To say that people knew some of the things Euclid did before he wrote his books, through trial and error is trivial. Before Pythagoras, the Chinese and the Babylonians knew examples of Pythagorean Triangles, the Chinese may even have known the theorem. What we appreciate from Pythagoras is the proof, which Euclid wrote, not claiming it was being written for the first time. To claim that the pythagorean theorem or trigonometry wasn't used in architecture or engineering before the renaissance is just mere blindness. Go ahead, attempt to build a tunnel or measure a distance or calculating how many stones you need for that door, without anything in the books of Euclid. I'll wait. Yes, people didn't cite or knew Euclid, but they were using the results, not referencing scientific literature.
To say that academic research is not based on trial and error is not just a mistake. but not having and inkling of what is involved in any type of academic research, at least in the hard sciences. Academic research, even in mathematics, consist of nothing but trial and error! Yes, afterwards we write the papers as if we knew everything all along, but that is not the practice of science, but its result.
To then say that academic research has not contributed to innovations in technology and to try to claim that "drop outs' have innovated more is confusing the business of technology with technology itself, is ignoring what cryptography is, and how it developed, is ignoring the irony of the applicability of Hardy's mathematical results, is ignoring the history of the World Wide Web, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, NASA, HP, and a million others. It's, simply, claiming as true what you wanted to be true, without examining it honestly. To use the internet as an example of academic research not contributing in technology is to deny a reality that I lived.
At the end, this book is dishonest and boring. Yes, it may have something to be learned from it, but it is an injustice to try to pass crummy thinking as if it was part of a great idea.
It started absolutely great and has an idea (antifragility) that is worthy and notable and interesting. Wait, let me back up from the beginning: I could not finish this book.
When I read non fiction I tend to stick to certain rules:
1) I want to learn from the books I read. I tend not to read Mathematics, for example, except in formal context, since normally when I read Math being exposed to the general public I noticed how poorly they are really explaining the concepts.
2) I don't read books if I agree with the conclusion. For example, since I am an atheist, I seldom read books on the subject of why we should be atheists, I enjoy the rest of Richard Dawkins works.
3) I refused to be bored. Despite the previous points I do not read books on astrology, for example, because I am certain they will not convince me of their truth (I won't learn from them), but even more certain I will find them utterly and completely boring.
This book started as an amazing jewel. A book where I was reaching for the, thankfully virtual, dictionary almost in every page. When I read the page, almost at the beginning of the book, that said:
"Now we aim--after some work--to connect in the reader's mind, with a single thread, elements seemingly far apart, such as Cato the Elder, Nietzsche, Thales of Miletus, the potency of the system of city-states, the sustainability of artisans, the process of discovery, the onesidedness of opacity, financial derivatives, antibiotic resistance, bottom-up systems, Socrates' invitation to overrationalize, how to lecture birds, obsessive love, Darwinian evolution, the mathematical concept of Jensen's inequality, optionality and option theory, the idea of ancestral heuristics, the works of Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke, Wittgenstein's antirationalism, the fraudulent theories of the economics establishment, tinkering and bricolage, terrorism exacerbated by death of its members, an apologia for artisanal societies, the ethical flaws of the middle class, Paleo-style workouts (and nutrition), the idea of medical iatrogenics, the glorious notion of the magnificent (megalopsychon), my obsession with the idea of convexity (and my phobia of concavity), the late-2000s banking and economic crisis, the misunderstanding of redundancy, the difference between tourist and flâneur, etc. All in one single--and, I am certain, simple--thread."
I thought I was in for the biggest treat in reading since Wittgenstein.
Alas, though the book starts in a wonderful way and the idea of antifragility is an amazing idea, at some point you realize something is happening. At first, the author criticizes pseudo scientificism, then stars swearing for Baal. That is followed by an exposition of the trivial truth that there are options outside finance that are poorly priced, as if that was a hidden, previously unknown idea. And finally, around the middle of the book, he dismisses science all together. He claims, and, unfortunately, fails to prove, that science does not produce most of the technological (and others? Not clear) innovations through history. He does this through the simple method of claiming we got it backwards, then claiming that in some cases some people claim we got it backwards, then admitting that there may be a few cases where we got it right, but that those are not important. All this starts with some academicians giving birds lectures on how to fly... Before you continue reading this review, may I remind you again that I could not finish this book? It became boring. Furthermore, if you agree with the author, I should point out that I am, of course, a sworn enemy of what he exposes, having a PhD in mathematics and all. Never lectured birds though, just taught some calculus and functional analysis to non flying human beings.
Case in point. He claims Euclid results aren't used in Architecture. Then admits that the Pythagorean Theorem is used somewhat in architecture. Who has claim Euclid was central to architecture is not clear... But this represents an ignorance of what Euclid did. He was formalizing previous knowledge. This knowledge was not all original, though some was. To say that people knew some of the things Euclid did before he wrote his books, through trial and error is trivial. Before Pythagoras, the Chinese and the Babylonians knew examples of Pythagorean Triangles, the Chinese may even have known the theorem. What we appreciate from Pythagoras is the proof, which Euclid wrote, not claiming it was being written for the first time. To claim that the pythagorean theorem or trigonometry wasn't used in architecture or engineering before the renaissance is just mere blindness. Go ahead, attempt to build a tunnel or measure a distance or calculating how many stones you need for that door, without anything in the books of Euclid. I'll wait. Yes, people didn't cite or knew Euclid, but they were using the results, not referencing scientific literature.
To say that academic research is not based on trial and error is not just a mistake. but not having and inkling of what is involved in any type of academic research, at least in the hard sciences. Academic research, even in mathematics, consist of nothing but trial and error! Yes, afterwards we write the papers as if we knew everything all along, but that is not the practice of science, but its result.
To then say that academic research has not contributed to innovations in technology and to try to claim that "drop outs' have innovated more is confusing the business of technology with technology itself, is ignoring what cryptography is, and how it developed, is ignoring the irony of the applicability of Hardy's mathematical results, is ignoring the history of the World Wide Web, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, NASA, HP, and a million others. It's, simply, claiming as true what you wanted to be true, without examining it honestly. To use the internet as an example of academic research not contributing in technology is to deny a reality that I lived.
At the end, this book is dishonest and boring. Yes, it may have something to be learned from it, but it is an injustice to try to pass crummy thinking as if it was part of a great idea.
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
Very entertaining, densely complex and challenging to assimilate in one reading without some previous understanding. I'll be investigating some of the many books from his Bibliography. Hopefully that will bring me up top speed. I get much of the thrust of his thesis and I'm so lost in some of the details. He makes many salient points. For example;
"Life is more, a lot more labyrinthine than shown in our memory- our minds are in the business of turning history into something smooth and linear, which makes us underestimate randomness....
We have the illusion that the world functions thanks to programmed design, university research, and bureaucratic funding, but there is compelling- very compelling- evidence to show that this is an illusion... the crux of complex systems, those with interacting parts, is that they convey information to these component parts through stressors...your body gets information about the environment... through stress, via hormones or other messengers we haven't discovered yet....
Had Prozac been available last century, Baudelaire's "spleen," Edgar Allen Poe's moods, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, the lamentations of so many other poets, everything with a soul would have been silenced... Measures that aim at reducing variability and swings (of mood) in the lives of our children are also reducing variability and differences within our said to be Great Culturally Global Society....If you are not a washing machine or a cuckoo clock- in other words, if you are alive- something deep inside your soul likes a certain measure of randomness and disorder...If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead."
"Life is more, a lot more labyrinthine than shown in our memory- our minds are in the business of turning history into something smooth and linear, which makes us underestimate randomness....
We have the illusion that the world functions thanks to programmed design, university research, and bureaucratic funding, but there is compelling- very compelling- evidence to show that this is an illusion... the crux of complex systems, those with interacting parts, is that they convey information to these component parts through stressors...your body gets information about the environment... through stress, via hormones or other messengers we haven't discovered yet....
Had Prozac been available last century, Baudelaire's "spleen," Edgar Allen Poe's moods, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, the lamentations of so many other poets, everything with a soul would have been silenced... Measures that aim at reducing variability and swings (of mood) in the lives of our children are also reducing variability and differences within our said to be Great Culturally Global Society....If you are not a washing machine or a cuckoo clock- in other words, if you are alive- something deep inside your soul likes a certain measure of randomness and disorder...If I could predict what my day would exactly look like, I would feel a little bit dead."
Everyone else is deluded but I'm here to tell you the truth! That's the call of a man with overblown claims and delusions of grandeur about his own great intellect. This guy is a total blowhard. Think Trump, but if he had an idea and was not actively trying to defraud anyone. It's hard to get to the meat of this book because the man is such a pompous asshole.
The main idea is that systems that are antifragile, ones that improve with stressors such as big unexpected and negative events, are desirable. Sure, sounds good. But he tends to make claims with no evidence, or at least no mention of evidence. Researchers are more likely to say they can predict the unpredictable than they used to? "The rarer the event, the less tractable, and the less we know about how frequent its occurrence--yet the rarer the event the more confident these "scientists" involved in predicting, modeling, and using PowerPoint in conferences with equations in multicolor background have become" (p. 7) Evidence please? If anything we better understand what systems we have some handle on and those we don't (see [b:The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't|13588394|The Signal and the Noise Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't|Nate Silver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1355058876s/13588394.jpg|19175796] by Nate Silver). Every half-conscious modeler knows that rare events are harder to predict.
He uses the word sissy seriously, to refer to people ("fragilistas") who want to try to predict risky systems and manage them. Right. What a ridiculous endeavor, to see if there's a way to predict storms and earthquakes, or even economic systems. What he doesn't mention is that different complex systems are differently predictable; weather is something we've got down pretty well, climate is harder, and earthquakes and the market we really don't have down at all. If you want to read a great book about our ability to model and predict things, again, read The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver.
I've also never read a book that is so anti-education, and so hypocritical about it. He has multiple degrees and is writing a book designed to teach people his ideas. (p.12 "Highly Constipated and Honorable Members of the Academy" Are you 12 sir? Come on.) Overall, he tries to create an 'us' and 'them' by denigrating the 'them'. 'Us' are the people who 'do things', the practitioners, and 'them' are those who wish to teach or create/regulate policy. His real point, that it would make sense for people who teach something like business to have had actual experience in business, is not unreasonable. His bombastic and extreme take on it is unreasonable. He sounds like a 12-year-old bully who's lashing out because his ideas haven't gotten the attention that he wants from the academic crowd (which is weird since his books have been deemed very influential). Or he's just spreading the bombast to stir up book sales.
He also treats his ideas as new. The idea that some systems improve with stress is actually not new. In fact, he cites countless philosophers (academic types, no?) who had the same basic idea and others who have applied it to business and politics. Even the cliche 'that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger' is the same idea.
As if his general assholishness and insufferable belief in his intellectual superiority weren't enough, the book is bloated with many unnecessary examples. Each chapter has a point that can be made in a few pages, but somehow manages to stretch to 15 or 20. On the plus side, this bloat makes the book skimmable. Or you can just read the prologue, which sums it all up and makes the rest of the book unnecessary.
In truth though, I don't think you should waste a minute of your life on this book. The main point is: systems that improve when they undergo stress, antifragile systems, are good, and are better than those that react poorly to stress (or are merely resilient, which is something he finds to be sissified.) People who try to keep systems at an equilibrium so as to avoid the major shocks of unexpected events are deluded and are bound to muck things up because unexpected events are hard to predict, much less regulate against/around. We should make more of our systems (economic, political, etc.) antifragile. And sometimes that means that we have to leave things alone rather than intervening to save them. That may come at a cost to some individuals, but will work out for the greater good. That leads to thorny ethical issues, but so be it. So that's it, that's the idea. Hopefully I've dissuaded you from bothering with the book.
The main idea is that systems that are antifragile, ones that improve with stressors such as big unexpected and negative events, are desirable. Sure, sounds good. But he tends to make claims with no evidence, or at least no mention of evidence. Researchers are more likely to say they can predict the unpredictable than they used to? "The rarer the event, the less tractable, and the less we know about how frequent its occurrence--yet the rarer the event the more confident these "scientists" involved in predicting, modeling, and using PowerPoint in conferences with equations in multicolor background have become" (p. 7) Evidence please? If anything we better understand what systems we have some handle on and those we don't (see [b:The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't|13588394|The Signal and the Noise Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't|Nate Silver|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1355058876s/13588394.jpg|19175796] by Nate Silver). Every half-conscious modeler knows that rare events are harder to predict.
He uses the word sissy seriously, to refer to people ("fragilistas") who want to try to predict risky systems and manage them. Right. What a ridiculous endeavor, to see if there's a way to predict storms and earthquakes, or even economic systems. What he doesn't mention is that different complex systems are differently predictable; weather is something we've got down pretty well, climate is harder, and earthquakes and the market we really don't have down at all. If you want to read a great book about our ability to model and predict things, again, read The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver.
I've also never read a book that is so anti-education, and so hypocritical about it. He has multiple degrees and is writing a book designed to teach people his ideas. (p.12 "Highly Constipated and Honorable Members of the Academy" Are you 12 sir? Come on.) Overall, he tries to create an 'us' and 'them' by denigrating the 'them'. 'Us' are the people who 'do things', the practitioners, and 'them' are those who wish to teach or create/regulate policy. His real point, that it would make sense for people who teach something like business to have had actual experience in business, is not unreasonable. His bombastic and extreme take on it is unreasonable. He sounds like a 12-year-old bully who's lashing out because his ideas haven't gotten the attention that he wants from the academic crowd (which is weird since his books have been deemed very influential). Or he's just spreading the bombast to stir up book sales.
He also treats his ideas as new. The idea that some systems improve with stress is actually not new. In fact, he cites countless philosophers (academic types, no?) who had the same basic idea and others who have applied it to business and politics. Even the cliche 'that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger' is the same idea.
As if his general assholishness and insufferable belief in his intellectual superiority weren't enough, the book is bloated with many unnecessary examples. Each chapter has a point that can be made in a few pages, but somehow manages to stretch to 15 or 20. On the plus side, this bloat makes the book skimmable. Or you can just read the prologue, which sums it all up and makes the rest of the book unnecessary.
In truth though, I don't think you should waste a minute of your life on this book. The main point is: systems that improve when they undergo stress, antifragile systems, are good, and are better than those that react poorly to stress (or are merely resilient, which is something he finds to be sissified.) People who try to keep systems at an equilibrium so as to avoid the major shocks of unexpected events are deluded and are bound to muck things up because unexpected events are hard to predict, much less regulate against/around. We should make more of our systems (economic, political, etc.) antifragile. And sometimes that means that we have to leave things alone rather than intervening to save them. That may come at a cost to some individuals, but will work out for the greater good. That leads to thorny ethical issues, but so be it. So that's it, that's the idea. Hopefully I've dissuaded you from bothering with the book.
I read this most recently during my hospital stay for my breakdown last week. Taleb has Libertarianish politics which is understandable given his Wall Street background (I don't like Libertarian politics as I will make clear on political books I review.) I like this book however with observations on life infused with stoic wisdom disguised as a book on statistics and the concept of Anti-fragility or systems that get stronger with the random knocks applied to them. Applies the idea of hormesis (a small dose of poison protects against bigger later doses) See the book the Poison King about the Hellenistic ruler on this. Anyway, Taleb divides his categories into three systems fragile systems, robust systems, and antifragile. Fragile stuff breaks easily, robust stuff is largely indifferent to shocks, and anti-fragile stuff gets stronger with shocks. Machinery be it material or more conceptual that is fragile breaks under shocks think intricate, delicate and complicated contraptions, with lots of interconnected moving parts, Robust is usually more simple devices which can take a knock and keep going, Anti-fragile systems are strangely often complex with black box features that get stronger through and evolving process that toughens them over time. Hence modern preferences for new shiny intricate toys are a problem quite often. Robust simplicity is better but to really make for long-lasting devices you need them to evolve and stand up to slings and arrows of outrageous fortune hence a preference for old and tried and true is probably a safer prejudice. I like the ideas probably have to work some to make it meld with my favored political preferences.
Another classic from Taleb! This is a great mental model, the idea that a thing or system can not only be resilient but actually grow stronger from a challenge or difficulty - within reason. I will re-read this one day.
Taleb's books always fascinate me, but if with "The Black Swan" I thought I had a clear idea, this has left me a little more confused. Now I'm sure that's my fault, but in general I think that the author was confusing some times, returning with several examples of what he wanted to prove even if I only arrived at slightly different conclusions, but clearly I am neither a economist, let alone a mathematician or a statistician.
I libri di Taleb mi affascinano sempre, ma se con "Il cigno nero" peró credevo di avere le idee chiare, questo mi ha lasciato un pochino piú confusa. Ora io sono sicura che sia colpa mia, ma in generale credo che anche l'autore si sia intortato alcune volte, tornando con esempi diversi su quello che voleva dimostrare, ed il risultato é stato che io arrivavo a conclusioni leggermente diverse, ma chiaramente non sono né un economista né, tantomeno, un matematico o uno statistico.
I libri di Taleb mi affascinano sempre, ma se con "Il cigno nero" peró credevo di avere le idee chiare, questo mi ha lasciato un pochino piú confusa. Ora io sono sicura che sia colpa mia, ma in generale credo che anche l'autore si sia intortato alcune volte, tornando con esempi diversi su quello che voleva dimostrare, ed il risultato é stato che io arrivavo a conclusioni leggermente diverse, ma chiaramente non sono né un economista né, tantomeno, un matematico o uno statistico.
Although a lot of the math went waaay over my head, I really enjoyed this book.