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Ask HN: What do you think of Taleb's “Antifragile” concept?

18 points by jamiegreen 9y ago

Have you made any changes to the way you live or work as a result?

gns24 9y ago
The more you optimise something, the more fragile it gets. So to make something antifragile, you have to make something far from optimal. That book really didn't inspire me like some of his earlier work.
- OscarCunningham 9y ago
  I suppose if antifragility is actually good then optimizing for the long term (and taking into acount all possibilities) should automatically create an antifragile system.
- jamiegreen 9y ago
  Do you have a particular recommendation? I just started antifragile and havent read any of his other work...
  - machinehermit 9y ago
    Fooled By Randomness I would read first for sure.
tomhoward 9y ago
Yes. When I first heard about it (on EconTalk in early 2012) I was at a crossroads regarding my business and life, and the antifragile concept convinced me that the harder/riskier path was the best one, as even if my business failed, the lessons I'd learn would make me far stronger and more capable than if I took the easier path. Six years later, that one struggling company is now two successful companies, I'm in a strong financial position personally, and I've learned unique insights that could have a major, broad impact if I continue on this path.
kk58 9y ago
Antifragile seems to be basically a remarketed version of "complex networks". Networks which have dense connection and removal of nodes doesnt change network radius by a lot. Complex societies can be graphed as network and complexity would be evident in network structure. So results would hold i guess. I usually find talebi very verbose
petr_tik 9y ago
It was only yesterday that I wrote up my thoughts about Taleb's ideas and how the apply to software development. tl;dr antifragile is testing, fuzzing and chaos engineering skin in the game is devops http://petr-tik.github.io/talebian-software-development.html http://petr-tik.github.io/talebian-software-development.html

18 points by jamiegreen 9y ago

Have you made any changes to the way you live or work as a result?

The more you optimise something, the more fragile it gets. So to make something antifragile, you have to make something far from optimal. That book really didn't inspire me like some of his earlier work.

OscarCunningham 9y ago
I suppose if antifragility is actually good then optimizing for the long term (and taking into acount all possibilities) should automatically create an antifragile system.
jamiegreen 9y ago
Do you have a particular recommendation? I just started antifragile and havent read any of his other work...
- machinehermit 9y ago
  Fooled By Randomness I would read first for sure.

tomhoward 9y ago

Yes. When I first heard about it (on EconTalk in early 2012) I was at a crossroads regarding my business and life, and the antifragile concept convinced me that the harder/riskier path was the best one, as even if my business failed, the lessons I'd learn would make me far stronger and more capable than if I took the easier path. Six years later, that one struggling company is now two successful companies, I'm in a strong financial position personally, and I've learned unique insights that could have a major, broad impact if I continue on this path.

kk58 9y ago

Antifragile seems to be basically a remarketed version of "complex networks". Networks which have dense connection and removal of nodes doesnt change network radius by a lot. Complex societies can be graphed as network and complexity would be evident in network structure. So results would hold i guess. I usually find talebi very verbose

petr_tik 9y ago

It was only yesterday that I wrote up my thoughts about Taleb's ideas and how the apply to software development. tl;dr antifragile is testing, fuzzing and chaos engineering skin in the game is devops http://petr-tik.github.io/talebian-software-development.html http://petr-tik.github.io/talebian-software-development.html