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colleen_parks 's review for:
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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.