Antifragile
I read Nicholas Taleb’s book Antifragile
over the past few weeks. It works nicely
with my philosophy of “In order to increase your strength, you must push
against an opposing force.” His voice is
that of a wise grandfather who has been around the block a time or two and has
something to say.
Taleb roughly predicted the economic crash of
2008, and the subsequent Second Great Depression, which is still with us
today. He made millions off of investing
against the market trends at the time.
He was a professional trader.
There are certain events that happen both
rarely and regularly. The stock markets
crash every seven years or so. Natural
disasters happen every decade or two.
There are three categories of things or systems in their response to
this Black Swan event.
Fragile
Things
Fragile things break under a high
stressor. Think of a porcelain cup. A large shock will shatter it. Fragile things are destroyed under high
stressors.
His symbol of the Fragile is the king feasting
under the Sword of Damocles. The sword
is suspended above his head held only by a horse hair thread. He is in a fragile situation because a horse
hair thread will break under stress.
Robust
Things
Robust things do not care about high
stressors. You can throw an earthquake
at them, and they do not change.
His symbol for the Robust is the
Phoenix. The phoenix is repeatedly
destroyed, but every time it rises from the ashes and emerges just as it was
before.
Antifragile
Things
Antifragile things have a peculiar aspect to
them. They become stronger under
stress. In fact, given the nature of
reality, when rare catastrophic events happen, the Antifragile take advantage
of the situation and become more powerful – but up to a point.
Taleb uses the symbol of the Hydra for
Antifragile things. When you cut off one
head of the Hydra, more grow back in its place even stronger than before.
///
Of course, Antifragile fits my personality
very well, and those of my closest friends and acquaintances. We thrive on chaos and situations where
things are changing fast. We like to
travel to strange places and test ourselves to see how strong we are. We like wild and crazy business situations
where we do not know whether or not we will survive the next month’s
payroll. We become stronger in these
high stress situations.
We tend to like storms and violent weather –
hurricanes especially. We like it when
supposedly strong people attempt to challenge us.
Those who like to live comfortable lives are
not comfortable hanging around us. For
some reason, we disturb them greatly with our lust for life and stress. Our minds know no boundaries or standard
doctrines. We are designed by evolution
for changes and adaptation. We are
Hydra.
Freddy Martini
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