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That 99PI episode was one of their best. The image of a mudslide happening because of denuded mountains was terrifying. I’m reading antifragile right now and h
by iambateman 8y ago
That 99PI episode was one of their best. The image of a mudslide happening because of denuded mountains was terrifying.
I’m reading antifragile right now and he’s talking about systems which improve with a certain amount of volatility and stress. It seems forests are “antifragile” on their own, and our efforts may in fact introduce fragility.
- curiousgal 8y ago>I’m reading antifragile right now I commend you for that, I just find his writing style to be so annoying that I can't even finish reading a simple article of his.
- claytoneast 8y agoHis books are less grating than his short pieces.
- stouset 8y agoThey really aren’t.
- iambateman 8y agoTotally agree. I lived with a guy from the Middle East for several years, and it actually helps to imagine his voice when I read Taleb.
- gowld 8y agoSeems obvious that if you expose a system to stress, whatever survives will be stress-proof; while if you hide stress from a system, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Same story with allergy immunities and used cars.
- darkerside 8y agoWhat's the used cars example?
- jonathankoren 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
- darkerside 8y agoI'm sure that's partly true, but it doesn't seem to account for the lack of alternatives to selling a used car. A car offers no utility, and yet continues to depreciate, sitting in the garage. Assuming you want or need to participate in buying/selling a car for life reasons (growing family, moving houses, or moving upmarket into just vehicles), how else do you class back any value from this asset? Other alternatives (donation, trade-in) aren't going to get you even lemon prices in return.
- jonathankoren 8y agoI don’t understand. If you sell the car, you get money which has the maximum utility, because you can trade it for other things. Donating and trading are essentially selling, so what would an alternative that provides positive utility look like?
- darkerside 8y agoThey are alternatives to selling, but you typically receive less money than you would in a straight sale. I think I'm asking the same question as you. > Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" (since plemon < pavg) and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches" (since ppeach > pavg). My point is that this is a highly idealized and theoretical model. Life doesn't work this way.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
- raesene9 8y agoI live near the Rest and be Thankful in Scotland, we know all about land/mudslides due to deforestation :) The hillside above the road has no trees and there are regular landslides that'll close the road (which is the main road into the west of scotland) for a week at a time. After spending millions on nets and ditches, they've lodged a plan to replant trees above the road...