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Summary of Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb|Key Concepts in 15 Min or Less
Book Summary| Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Where do the world’s smartest people get their ideas? From great books! This Summary is perfect for the time-crunched reader, the last-minute studier, or anyone who wants a solid overall understanding of the original book. -Are you strapped for time?
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Amplify your knowledge, gain new perspectives and become a better, smarter you!
-Do you want an idea of what the book is about without paying full price?
-Do you want a fast and easy way to pull the meat out of a book, leave the fluff behind, and get a solid summary that contains just the best and most useful ideas?
If so, sounds like this summary is just what you need.
This summary is concise and can be read in 15 minutes or less.
Amplify your knowledge, gain new perspectives and become a better, smarter you!
- GenresNonfiction
25 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2017
138 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 8, 2021
This was not an easy read for me. The author has remarkable discernment regarding foibles of the medical system, all of which my fifty years in the medical establishment has been apparent to me - real people and real pain.
P. 10: To begin, one must understand his coined nouns, such as "fragilista."...the fragilista is one who makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects potentially severe and invisible."
P. 15: "If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud."
P 42: "The record shows that, for society, the richer we become, the harder it gets to live within our means. Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity."
P. 44: "the Lucretius problem...the fool believes that the tallest mountain in the world will be equal to the tallest one he has observed."
p. 52: "It is quite perplexing that those from whom we have benefited the most aren't those who have tried to help us (say with 'advice") but rather those who have actively tried - but eventually failed - to harm us."
P. 72: "Every plane crash brings us closer to safety ,improves the system, and makes the next flight safer - those who perish contribute to the overall safety of others." {Just imagine if the FCC investigators would scrutinize every episode of autism arising within 48 hours of receiving an injection would have done to save humanity.}
P. 96: "A little bit of agitation gives resources to souls and what makes the species prosper isn't peace, but freedom."
P. 109: "For we have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever can masquerade as science."
P. 110: "...naïve interventionism" (He refers to this a lot with regard to medical interventions, where
the harm can outweigh the good in a healthy person by some magnitude, whereas interventions for the very ill have a higher likelihood of producing benefit with relation to the likelihood of harm.
P. 112: With regard to Semmelweis and is stubborn adherence to the 'ridiculous' notion that the reason women were more likely to die of childbirth in the hospital was because of poor hygiene on the part of physicians - "...one should not expect laurels for bringing the truth."
P. 128: "...The best way to mitigate interventionism is to ration the supply of information, as naturalistically as possible This is hard to accept in the age of the Internet. It has been very hard for me to explain that the more data you get, ,the less you know what's going on, and the more iatrogenics you will cause. People are still under the illusion that "science" means more data.
P. 129: Regarding food disruptions when under the Soviet state he refers to three generations being housed in tight quarters. These provided real links to each other and made them better able to handle dire circumstances. [Might this be the rationale for limiting Easter to ten people?]
P. 133: Political and economic "tail events" are unpredictable, and their probabilities are not scientifically measurable. No matter how many dollars are spent on research, predicting revolutions is not the same as counting cards; humans will never be able to turn politics and economics into the tractable randomness of blackjack."
P. 135: "All I hear is complaints about forecasters, when the next step is obvious yet rarely taken: avoidance of iatrogenics from forecasting. We understand childproofing, but not forecaster-hubris-proofing." [The Imperial model of COVID disastrous deaths comes to mind.]
P. 152: Seneca, a practical decision maker, regarding the ideas about asymmetry central to this book (and life), the key to robustness and antifragility "...is that wisdom in decision making is vastly more important - not just practically, but philosophically - than knowledge."
P. 156: Stoicism is about the domestication, not necessarily the elimination, of emotions. "...the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking."
P. 157: He refers to asymmetry throughout the book - "If you have more to lose than to benefit from events of fate, there is an asymmetry, and not a good one. And such asymmetry is universal." Then he explains fragility in that light.
P 158: "Fragility implies more to lose than to gain, equals more downside than upside, equals (unfavorable) asymmetry" and "Antifragility implies more to gain than to lose, equals more upside than downside, equals (favorable) asymmetry."
P. 255: He infers that the fragilista mistakes "what he does not understand for nonsense."
P. 256: An impressive number of classic scholars are referred to in this comprehensive work, one of them is Nietzsche "...expressed the famous idea that logic excludes - by definition - nuances, and since truth resides exclusively in the nuances, it is a 'useless instrument for finding Truth in the moral and political sciences.'"
P. 258: John Gray, a contemporary political philosopher has been fighting "the prevailing ideas that the Enlightenment is a panacea - treating a certain category of thinkers as Enlightenment fundamentalists. Gray showed repeatedly how what we call scientific progress can be just a mirage.
P. The terms nonlinearity and convexity are frequently used. "Detecting acceleration of harm - applies to anything that entails decision making under uncertainty, and risk management. He states these are most interesting in medicine and technology.
P. 293: One gleeful notation in this book revolves around risk aversion using math. "If you can say something straightforward in a complicated manner with complex theorems, even if there is no large gain in rigor from these complicated equations, people take the idea very seriously. This is according to the "wonderful principle that one should use people's stupidity to have fun."
P. 295: The "Procrustean Bed" (look it up): Do not try to squeeze information into the Procrustean bed, for example, keeping your grandmother in a room that averages 70 degrees, but unfortunately, is both 0 degrees and 140 degrees. "Since a model is by its very nature a simplification. You just don't want the simplification to distort the situation to the point of being harmful." [Imperial model again comes to mind.]
P. 302: "...the interventionista focuses on positive action - doing. Just like positive definitions, we saw that acts of commission are respected and glorified by our primitive minds and lead to, say, naive government interventions that end in disaster, followed by generalized complaints about naive government interventions, as these, it is not accepted, end in disaster, followed by more naive government interventions."
P. 307: On the availability of data, "...we have never had more data than we have now, yet have less predictability than ever. More data - such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street - can make you miss the big truck. When you cross the street, you remove data, anything by the essential threat."
I learned a lot from the antifragility - robust - fragile concepts in this book, all applicable to risk avoidance in life. I am in awe of his awareness of the breaches in trust inflicted on an unsuspecting public for many years. I respect his perspective on the dangers of their interventionism. Thus, five years after this book was published, the cognitive dissonance he displays in twitter-feed adamancy to coerce healthy people's compliance to government mandated (naive intervention) medical intervention astounds me.
Every one of the above significant quotations can be used to undermine the Nuremburg-like situation we are dealing with in 2021 with COVID. No Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved this global experiment. Never before have pregnant women been invited, no, badgered, to participate as a cohort as part of a sloppy world-wide experiment. No autonomy, no informed consent, no beneficence, no justice can be found in the methodology. The control group was eliminated after a few weeks. The results of the intervention are leaning on a voluntary reporting system (VAERS) that is unknown by many (most?) practitioners and not encouraged by employers.
This well-read, intelligent man who considers himself a risk identifier missed this. Stunning.
P. 10: To begin, one must understand his coined nouns, such as "fragilista."...the fragilista is one who makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects potentially severe and invisible."
P. 15: "If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud."
P 42: "The record shows that, for society, the richer we become, the harder it gets to live within our means. Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity."
P. 44: "the Lucretius problem...the fool believes that the tallest mountain in the world will be equal to the tallest one he has observed."
p. 52: "It is quite perplexing that those from whom we have benefited the most aren't those who have tried to help us (say with 'advice") but rather those who have actively tried - but eventually failed - to harm us."
P. 72: "Every plane crash brings us closer to safety ,improves the system, and makes the next flight safer - those who perish contribute to the overall safety of others." {Just imagine if the FCC investigators would scrutinize every episode of autism arising within 48 hours of receiving an injection would have done to save humanity.}
P. 96: "A little bit of agitation gives resources to souls and what makes the species prosper isn't peace, but freedom."
P. 109: "For we have managed to transfer religious belief into gullibility for whatever can masquerade as science."
P. 110: "...naïve interventionism" (He refers to this a lot with regard to medical interventions, where
the harm can outweigh the good in a healthy person by some magnitude, whereas interventions for the very ill have a higher likelihood of producing benefit with relation to the likelihood of harm.
P. 112: With regard to Semmelweis and is stubborn adherence to the 'ridiculous' notion that the reason women were more likely to die of childbirth in the hospital was because of poor hygiene on the part of physicians - "...one should not expect laurels for bringing the truth."
P. 128: "...The best way to mitigate interventionism is to ration the supply of information, as naturalistically as possible This is hard to accept in the age of the Internet. It has been very hard for me to explain that the more data you get, ,the less you know what's going on, and the more iatrogenics you will cause. People are still under the illusion that "science" means more data.
P. 129: Regarding food disruptions when under the Soviet state he refers to three generations being housed in tight quarters. These provided real links to each other and made them better able to handle dire circumstances. [Might this be the rationale for limiting Easter to ten people?]
P. 133: Political and economic "tail events" are unpredictable, and their probabilities are not scientifically measurable. No matter how many dollars are spent on research, predicting revolutions is not the same as counting cards; humans will never be able to turn politics and economics into the tractable randomness of blackjack."
P. 135: "All I hear is complaints about forecasters, when the next step is obvious yet rarely taken: avoidance of iatrogenics from forecasting. We understand childproofing, but not forecaster-hubris-proofing." [The Imperial model of COVID disastrous deaths comes to mind.]
P. 152: Seneca, a practical decision maker, regarding the ideas about asymmetry central to this book (and life), the key to robustness and antifragility "...is that wisdom in decision making is vastly more important - not just practically, but philosophically - than knowledge."
P. 156: Stoicism is about the domestication, not necessarily the elimination, of emotions. "...the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking."
P. 157: He refers to asymmetry throughout the book - "If you have more to lose than to benefit from events of fate, there is an asymmetry, and not a good one. And such asymmetry is universal." Then he explains fragility in that light.
P 158: "Fragility implies more to lose than to gain, equals more downside than upside, equals (unfavorable) asymmetry" and "Antifragility implies more to gain than to lose, equals more upside than downside, equals (favorable) asymmetry."
P. 255: He infers that the fragilista mistakes "what he does not understand for nonsense."
P. 256: An impressive number of classic scholars are referred to in this comprehensive work, one of them is Nietzsche "...expressed the famous idea that logic excludes - by definition - nuances, and since truth resides exclusively in the nuances, it is a 'useless instrument for finding Truth in the moral and political sciences.'"
P. 258: John Gray, a contemporary political philosopher has been fighting "the prevailing ideas that the Enlightenment is a panacea - treating a certain category of thinkers as Enlightenment fundamentalists. Gray showed repeatedly how what we call scientific progress can be just a mirage.
P. The terms nonlinearity and convexity are frequently used. "Detecting acceleration of harm - applies to anything that entails decision making under uncertainty, and risk management. He states these are most interesting in medicine and technology.
P. 293: One gleeful notation in this book revolves around risk aversion using math. "If you can say something straightforward in a complicated manner with complex theorems, even if there is no large gain in rigor from these complicated equations, people take the idea very seriously. This is according to the "wonderful principle that one should use people's stupidity to have fun."
P. 295: The "Procrustean Bed" (look it up): Do not try to squeeze information into the Procrustean bed, for example, keeping your grandmother in a room that averages 70 degrees, but unfortunately, is both 0 degrees and 140 degrees. "Since a model is by its very nature a simplification. You just don't want the simplification to distort the situation to the point of being harmful." [Imperial model again comes to mind.]
P. 302: "...the interventionista focuses on positive action - doing. Just like positive definitions, we saw that acts of commission are respected and glorified by our primitive minds and lead to, say, naive government interventions that end in disaster, followed by generalized complaints about naive government interventions, as these, it is not accepted, end in disaster, followed by more naive government interventions."
P. 307: On the availability of data, "...we have never had more data than we have now, yet have less predictability than ever. More data - such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street - can make you miss the big truck. When you cross the street, you remove data, anything by the essential threat."
I learned a lot from the antifragility - robust - fragile concepts in this book, all applicable to risk avoidance in life. I am in awe of his awareness of the breaches in trust inflicted on an unsuspecting public for many years. I respect his perspective on the dangers of their interventionism. Thus, five years after this book was published, the cognitive dissonance he displays in twitter-feed adamancy to coerce healthy people's compliance to government mandated (naive intervention) medical intervention astounds me.
Every one of the above significant quotations can be used to undermine the Nuremburg-like situation we are dealing with in 2021 with COVID. No Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved this global experiment. Never before have pregnant women been invited, no, badgered, to participate as a cohort as part of a sloppy world-wide experiment. No autonomy, no informed consent, no beneficence, no justice can be found in the methodology. The control group was eliminated after a few weeks. The results of the intervention are leaning on a voluntary reporting system (VAERS) that is unknown by many (most?) practitioners and not encouraged by employers.
This well-read, intelligent man who considers himself a risk identifier missed this. Stunning.
September 26, 2023
Excellent summary of a book that is mostly wrong
This summary captured all of the main points in a clear, concise manner. I strongly recommend reading this instead of Taleb's book, which is a waste of time.
The source book is "confidently incorrect" in all of its main points, and relies entirely on analogies rather than actual evidence. I had read it years ago and had it recommended to me recently. This reminded me why I never recommended Taleb's work to others - he writes reasonably well, but mistakes surface similarities for deep connections. I'd love to find a book that explores the idea of chaotic systems and "anti fragility" with some actual rigor, since I think he's on to something.
This summary captured all of the main points in a clear, concise manner. I strongly recommend reading this instead of Taleb's book, which is a waste of time.
The source book is "confidently incorrect" in all of its main points, and relies entirely on analogies rather than actual evidence. I had read it years ago and had it recommended to me recently. This reminded me why I never recommended Taleb's work to others - he writes reasonably well, but mistakes surface similarities for deep connections. I'd love to find a book that explores the idea of chaotic systems and "anti fragility" with some actual rigor, since I think he's on to something.
February 25, 2018
couldn’t finish this. author too obnoxious.
March 8, 2018
Powerful Insight into the price of sugar coating
A no nonsense look at the workings of an unnatural approach to stability. By allowing the weak natured to run it's course and go extinct, the stronger more stable natured can fill the void. By propping up the weak to look strong, you face long walks on thin ice. Great book.
A no nonsense look at the workings of an unnatural approach to stability. By allowing the weak natured to run it's course and go extinct, the stronger more stable natured can fill the void. By propping up the weak to look strong, you face long walks on thin ice. Great book.
December 16, 2017
Opposite of fragile
The premise is fair,the flaw is explained by a view to vocabulary. Think “gatherer hunter” society to change perspective. Then opposite of fragile is adaptable. Changes the outlook.
The premise is fair,the flaw is explained by a view to vocabulary. Think “gatherer hunter” society to change perspective. Then opposite of fragile is adaptable. Changes the outlook.
May 1, 2023
Extremely repetitive and in my opinion just a bunch of ideas written in random essays and put together to create a product but without any kind of plot relating then.
Also, I am still trying to find the humour they mention on the back cover between all that ego.
Also, I am still trying to find the humour they mention on the back cover between all that ego.
August 10, 2023
Succinct and clear
Although Taleb’s ideas are very interesting, I sometimes struggle to get gripped by his books. This summary was great introduction for me to actually push through with Antifragile!
Although Taleb’s ideas are very interesting, I sometimes struggle to get gripped by his books. This summary was great introduction for me to actually push through with Antifragile!
November 5, 2023
Useful insights
A fair number of grammatical errors. Not a problem but suggests a lack of proofreading which makes me a little skeptical about how accurate this summary is .
But the concepts do seem to make a lot of sense and agree with my experience.
A fair number of grammatical errors. Not a problem but suggests a lack of proofreading which makes me a little skeptical about how accurate this summary is .
But the concepts do seem to make a lot of sense and agree with my experience.
July 9, 2024
Couldn't be bothered to read the full thing. It's ok and relatively agreeable.
January 21, 2026
Author has a narrow view of the world. Offensive at times.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews