Astral Codex Ten

Antifragile

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Antifragile

Article

Antifragile is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between March 23, 2021 and March 29, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Nassim Taleb summarizes the thesis of Antifragile as”; “I feel bad trying to summarize Antifragile”; “Antifragile for only eight years”. It most often appears alongside Guy Beaujouan, Nassim Taleb, Taleb.

Metadata

  • Category: Books
  • Mention count: 3
  • Issue count: 3
  • First seen: March 23, 2021
  • Last seen: March 29, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Antifragile
March 23, 2021 · Original source
Nassim Taleb summarizes the thesis of Antifragile as:
Inline links: Antifragile
The glass is fragile: the less you disrupt it, the better it does. A rock is “robust” - neither fragile nor antifragile - it will do about equally well whether you disrupt it or not. What about antifragile? Taleb's first (and cutest) example is the Hydra, which grows more and more heads the more a hero tries to harm it. What else is like this?
Buying options is antifragile. Suppose oil is currently worth $10, and you pay $1 for an option to buy it at $10 next year. If there's a small amount of variance (oil can go up or down 20%), it's kind of a wash. Worst-case scenario, oil goes down 20% to $8, you don't buy it, and you've lost $1 buying the option. Best-case scenario, oil goes up 20% to $12, you exercise your option to buy for $10, you sell it for $12, and you've made a $1 profit - $2 from selling the oil, minus $1 from buying the option. Overall you expect to break even. But if there's large uncertainty - the price of oil can go up or down 1000% - then it's a great deal. Worst-case scenario, oil goes down to negative $90 and you don't buy it, so you still just lost $1. Best case scenario, oil goes up to $110, you exercise your option to buy for $10, and you make $99 ($100 profit minus $1 for the option). So the oil option is antifragile - the more the price varies, the better it will do. The more chaotic things get, the more uncertain and unpredictable the world is, the more oil options start looking like a good deal.
Inline links: negative $90
More Antifragile, Diversity Libertarianism, And Corporate Censorship
March 25, 2021 · Original source
In yesterday's review of Antifragile, I tried to stick to something close to Taleb's own words. But here's how I eventually found myself understanding an important kind of antifragility.
Inline links: review of
So: nuclear plants are fragile. You want them to have as little variance as possible. Car companies are antifragile. You want them to have as much variance as possible.
Open Thread 165
March 29, 2021 · Original source
2: In my review of Antifragile, I repeated Nassim Taleb’s claim, sourced to history Guy Beaujouan, that “before the thirteenth century no more than five persons in the whole of Europe knew how to perform a division”. Here’s some discussion on whether that’s true.
Inline links: some discussion