Wednesday, February 27, 2013

ANTIFRAGILE by Nassim Taleb (2012)

This must be the most difficult book for one to read!

Taleb, whose The Black Swan (2007) became a run-away success in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, followed up his 'theory' with this 500-page volume: "ANTIFRAGILE - How to live in a world we don't understand" 

Taleb's concept is quite commonsensical really. To him, there is no word to define the exact opposite of 'fragile", hence "antifragile. In a nutshell, he advocates that we should throw away our Statistics and expect the least expected to happen, and happen in the most unexpected way. In this book, he rants away example after example of economic and corporate collapses and failures, most of which we already know, to back up his "theory". These are not uninteresting; however, I take strong exception of his extreme arrogance. Everybody seems to be wrong, except him! The way he runs down doctors, pharmacists, economists, scientists and researchers and what-have-you is totally uncalled for. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and author Thomas Friedman bear the worst brunt of his attack. I could also discern some Levant racism in him too.

Success breeds arrogance!


 

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