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> I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smalle

> I meant only that larger town/cities can take hurricanes a bit better than smaller ones can. Same reason that large trees weather the storm better than smaller trees do. If you increase the size of the system/thing, then it necessitates larger negative stimuli in most cases. Consider the size of a wave that would topple a canoe versus standard war ships. I don't know anything about that but it's an empirical question that you can't answer with a priori reasoning like you're trying to do. We need actual data. > At any rate, this is a hard analogy to stick with as it isn't the hurricane that makes things stronger. It is being ready for the hurricane. No, the point was that they are not ready the first time, but they are the second time. The hurricane is what causes them to be ready the second time. If their preparations were not good enough the second time, they will be even better the third time.

taeric 2y ago
I'm not sure I follow. You don't need heavy logic to explain why a single person can capsize a canoe rather easily, but would be unable to capsize something like a ferry. As a similar example, we know that you can't just scale up an ant body to be human sized, as it would crumble under its own weight. Look up the "square-cube law". Same basic idea, in many ways. Ratios and scale just don't hold as things grow. Back on the cities and preparing for a hurricane, this is not that they are stronger because they were hit by a hurricane. By this logic, you couldn't have a new coastal town that can weather one. After all, they weren't made stronger by the first hit. I think we can agree that is silly logic? If you know what forces you will get hit by, you can build anticipating them. This is too close to the phrasing that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Which, frankly, is mostly nonsense. Many things can weaken you to the point that what didn't kill you this time let something else finish you off. Its cute, but largely presupposes growth between hits that has to happen.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (for certain types of systems)" is the actual point.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Right, and I said that is cute, but mostly nonsense. There are no systems that can take arbitrary hits without ending. And as soon as you acknowledge that this only works by spurring growth after the hit, you are back to tolerances and growth.
    - guerrilla 2y ago
      I mean you can go and argue with the biologists and economists if you need to. I'm just delivering the meesage.
      - taeric 2y ago
        My argument here would be that this isn't that new, all told? And... I would be shocked to find a lot of disagreement there. Indeed, other threads are already pointing out that terms already existed that covered this general idea. My problem with antifragile, as often offered, is that it is positioned as something that gets stronger from being damaged, full stop. But... there is literally nothing on earth that would withstand the sun going nova, so that there are obvious limits to the idea. And if you accept that it is something in limits, you are back to model ideas of feedback and growth. And as you get back to that, you cover a lot of the same ground as many other discussions. It is a cute model, mind. And somewhat fun to play with. Also worth knowing that some systems will react violently to small changes. Think flashbacks in building fires. It just doesn't bring much new to the table, all told. Edit: I meant to add "fair enough!" at the top of this. Is a valid point to make! :D
        soulofmischief 2y ago
        I guess it's important that the negative signal be relatively small compared to the affected system, like antivenom doses, but also it needs to be predictable/differentiable to some degree. If two different doses of venom never had the same molecular patterns then it would be impossible to immunize against it. A one-time supernova event would destroy a solar system, but the universe itself is antifragile to supernovas, and actually has built emergent spatiotemporal structures which depend on supernovas as part of their lifecycle. New solar systems rise up from old supernovas. Predictability/differentiability of internal and external states is key for building robust systems, negative signals alone are often just detrimental. You can't learn from chaos.

taeric 2y ago

I'm not sure I follow. You don't need heavy logic to explain why a single person can capsize a canoe rather easily, but would be unable to capsize something like a ferry. As a similar example, we know that you can't just scale up an ant body to be human sized, as it would crumble under its own weight. Look up the "square-cube law". Same basic idea, in many ways. Ratios and scale just don't hold as things grow. Back on the cities and preparing for a hurricane, this is not that they are stronger because they were hit by a hurricane. By this logic, you couldn't have a new coastal town that can weather one. After all, they weren't made stronger by the first hit. I think we can agree that is silly logic? If you know what forces you will get hit by, you can build anticipating them. This is too close to the phrasing that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Which, frankly, is mostly nonsense. Many things can weaken you to the point that what didn't kill you this time let something else finish you off. Its cute, but largely presupposes growth between hits that has to happen.

guerrilla 2y ago
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger (for certain types of systems)" is the actual point.
- taeric 2y ago
  Right, and I said that is cute, but mostly nonsense. There are no systems that can take arbitrary hits without ending. And as soon as you acknowledge that this only works by spurring growth after the hit, you are back to tolerances and growth.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    I mean you can go and argue with the biologists and economists if you need to. I'm just delivering the meesage.
    - taeric 2y ago
      My argument here would be that this isn't that new, all told? And... I would be shocked to find a lot of disagreement there. Indeed, other threads are already pointing out that terms already existed that covered this general idea. My problem with antifragile, as often offered, is that it is positioned as something that gets stronger from being damaged, full stop. But... there is literally nothing on earth that would withstand the sun going nova, so that there are obvious limits to the idea. And if you accept that it is something in limits, you are back to model ideas of feedback and growth. And as you get back to that, you cover a lot of the same ground as many other discussions. It is a cute model, mind. And somewhat fun to play with. Also worth knowing that some systems will react violently to small changes. Think flashbacks in building fires. It just doesn't bring much new to the table, all told. Edit: I meant to add "fair enough!" at the top of this. Is a valid point to make! :D
      - soulofmischief 2y ago
        I guess it's important that the negative signal be relatively small compared to the affected system, like antivenom doses, but also it needs to be predictable/differentiable to some degree. If two different doses of venom never had the same molecular patterns then it would be impossible to immunize against it. A one-time supernova event would destroy a solar system, but the universe itself is antifragile to supernovas, and actually has built emergent spatiotemporal structures which depend on supernovas as part of their lifecycle. New solar systems rise up from old supernovas. Predictability/differentiability of internal and external states is key for building robust systems, negative signals alone are often just detrimental. You can't learn from chaos.