Антихрупкость | Насим Талеб

Книжный клуб Живые заметки
2

Books 2 and 3

  • Randomness is not risky. It’s not a bad thing.

    • You can’t defeat randomness by eliminating randomness.
    • The world doesn’t work like this. Even though we are looking at the world from an objectively understandable position, still too much is left to chance and the designs of nature.

  • Humid office and vast prairie.

    • George. The taxi driver.
      • Unpredictable but comparable to John’s income over the year.
    • John. The bank clerk.
      • Stable income with no variability.

  • The example of two brothers provide the understanding that free options, that George has, is the hallmark of antifragility.

    • A small nonterminal mistake is information, that dictates the changes and adaptive approach to work.
    • Here we can see a rift between the nature and the human nature.
      • The first one loves small errors, without it evolution would be impossible.
      • Humans don’t. Hence, we rely too much on our judgment. And by doing it, we put ourselves at the mercy of personal biases that do not enjoy the company of AF.
        • Judgments according to Stoics could be put on a leash. ![[The Practicing Stoic#^4201ff]]

  • We usually do not react, what takes place is our judgment about the occurrence. ^4201ff

    • And judgment is up to us.
    • All events involve three stages, not two, which is believed the case.
      • Event.
      • Judgment.
        • Understand frequent irrationality.
        • Control through patience and reason.
      • Reaction.
    • We need to notice the middle step.

  • Quantity into quality. The bigger the number of elements of the system, the more different the relationship among them.

    • The increase doesn’t preserve properties. The transformation is taking place.
    • Big entities tend to break in all manner of ways, wherever small one prove to be antifragile.
      • Small is beautiful in so many ways.
    • Example is countries with municipalities and central management, like USSR, but I am not sure that fall of the country had been the consequence of the size.
      • Examples, small countries with municipalities and big one.

  • Hand on vs know what approach.

    • Switzerland has low number level of university education compare to rich countries that rely on their banking system.
    • Model of banking education is mostly based on apprenticeship, and nearly vocational.
      • In other words. Crafts and know how instead of book knowledge and know what.

  • Best way to fail is to plan on a bid scale.

    • The world is too random and unpredictable. Though we can use some semblance of planning, without too many details.
    • The reason for the failure is the fact that we plan with the notion of visibility of the future, which is a mistake.
    • Survival comes from mixing fitness and environmental conditions.

  • If the butcher feeds the turkey all year, it doesn’t mean that he loves it.

    • The black swan day for a turkey is Thanksgiving Day. And the goal of AF is to become the butcher, not the poultry.
    • It’s the mother of all mistakes. Unknowledge of the possibility of the harmful outcome.
      • It prevails in social science circles and grounded in intellectual one.
        • *- Know the difference between real and manufactured stability
        • Risk is in the future, not in the past. Don’t rely too much on the data.

  • Micromanagement and rigorous control backfires and blows back, ruining the facade.

    • James Clerk Maxwell, electromagnetic theory.
    • Light control works, tight control leads to overreaction, bringing is some extreme cases the destruction of the system. [Swiss air].
    • Volatility introduces factuality of certain things, giving them opportunity to float without risk of sinking.
    • Where tight control breaks a hull of a ship, allowing no place for elasticity.

  • Donkey hunger – mental experiment.

    • Donkey can’t choose between water and food if he stands at the equal distance from both.
    • Dangerous impasse brings inevitable death for a donkey.
    • But as soon as we spur it randomly, either towards water or food, donkey will make its choice.
    • Randomness helps some solutions come to fruition.

  • Math randomness, annealing. That brings optimal solution because it invites randomness to the equation. And this kind solutions only randomness can deliver.

    • Experiment with a ball, which chaotic bouncing had been put into order by random low-intensity shocks.
    • Ancients used hidden and sophisticated way to exploit randomness in their decision making routine.
      • The stickier the business the more it need random chance to be successful.
      • I have a book which you open at random page, and you have the decision. When did I use it. I need to remember.
      • Another way to use a book is to open it on a random page, look at a random line and read it. Usually there is a decision you need.
      • And we have everything in books. [Moby Dick and The Bible, predictions].

  • Do not suppress volatility. It brings fragility to the system.

    • Volatility is information. Use it.
    • Life’s package, no stability without volatility.

  • We are living in modernity. The age in which we believe that we know nature and hence the society must be designed by us.

    • Which is a mistake. We didn’t domesticate nature, we subdued it to our needs by bending ourselves to the nature’s whims.

  • Blue is just a word. The color is and always has been and definitely will be the spectrum numbers. We don’t need to know the numbers in order to operate.

    • Thinker who doesn’t know the word blue is handicapped, but not the person who does something with the hands.
      • [[научное знание]] thinker
      • [[техническое знание]] doer

  • Intervening can be harmful.

    • Look for balance between benefits and harm.
    • Analyze the trade-off of probabilistic benefits and probabilistic costs.
    • Let go the need to make everything functional. There is no need in that.
      • Just make bets and play. The probability is on your side. 25 managers decision in front of CEO, Kahneman’s experiment from [[Thinking Fast and Slow]]
    • Interventionism depletes mental and financial resources without giving advantage and is almost always absent when needed the most.
      • We are blind to natural AF of the systems, they can take care of themselves, but we don’t give them chance to do it so by messing with them.
    • Abundance of road signs kills more than it saves. And 20 km speeding limit does the same. Lack of overcompensation, destroys alertness.

  • Develop an intervention policy. Define a breaking point of the system and initiate intervention to prevent the tripping point, where nothing can’t be saved anymore.

    • Risk-management routine.

Phenomenology is the observation of an empirical regularity without a visible theory for it.

  • Modern bonus systems are based on principle, what I’ve done to be where I am now.
    • But it is completely blind to a point what I’ve avoided doing to get here.
    • Which in most cases is more important.
    • Procrastination is a natural defense that allows things to take care of themselves and exercise AF.
      • Procrastination usually happens when you are faced with unnatural duties and procedures.
        • Visiting a dentist, doing homework with your son.
      • We, humans, are terrible at filtering information, especially short-term information.
        • From a meeting, or newsfeed or social media feed.
      • Procrastination is a safety mechanism to filter better, to resist the consequences of jumping into the pull.
    • Information can be toxic even in moderate quantities.
      • This quality of data is rarely discussed, though Marcus Aurelius warned about it. ![[Марк Аврелий о чтении#^691deb]]
      • The more you look at data, the more noise you get in return.
        • Reduce the frequency, instead of looking at the phone every hour, pick it up every two hours, or even better, every 4 hours.
        • Use it primarily as a gadget to receive and make calls.
        • Keep silent in the absence of something significant.
          • Newspapers and social networks can’t do it, due to the economics.
        • Information is a stressor. Too much of it and you step over a threshold of no return and drown.
          • You are becoming fragile.

Mitigation of interventionism lies in reducing the amount of data needed at certain moments, as naturalistically as possible. In the age of hyperconnectivity it’s hard to get. To do science, doesn't mean to have more data.
gauge the quality of data, significant is useful, abundant is harmful.

  • Percolation theory. Physicists know that we shouldn’t study one element of terrain.

    • Instead of that randomness of the system need to be surveyed.
    • Not seeing a random event is excusable, not preparing for it not.
      • We have to built antifragile systems, that are gaining form random events.
        • Curiosity is antifragile, like any form of addiction, and magnified by the attempts to satisfy it. Book have this ability.

  • Focus on actions and avoid words.

    • Don’t expect a recognition, it’s health eroding. Action only matter. External aspects of the actions are just your own perception, as said in [[The Practicing Stoic]]
    • A man gains from personal opinion, ability of risk taking.
      • Erudition.
      • Aesthetics.
      • Risk taking.
      • Nothing else matters.

  • Bet on those who betting against.

    • Oppose them. We can’t predict in general, as [[экспертное мнение]] experiment proved. It means that those who rely on predictions, take bigger risk than those who don’t.
    • Believing in predictions is a straights road to bankruptcy.

  • To reach a sound decision, you don’t need data of more knowledge or vaster information field.

    • All you require is a sliver of wisdom. Not even practically, philosophically, is enough.

Stoicism and antigragility

  • Stoicism makes you desire the challenge of a calamity.

    • Success brings asymmetry, and from it, you have more to lose. Sunk cost bias, or not even that, loss aversion bias.
      • Taleb despises the notion of aversion. And has more practical way of looking at the problem. He calls is assymetry.
      • When you have more too lose than to gain, it means you are fragile.
      • This asymmetry must be avoided.
    • Everyday lives bring too much of stress, especially professional.
      • Taleb used the technique “adjustment to the worst.
      • First day of the work, he wrote a resignation letter.
      • Before a new trading day, imagined the worst case scenario and lived through it.
      • It all allowed him to take certain types of risks he would never have taken if he didn’t prime himself in such a manner.
      • The rest of the career and a day would be just a bonus.

  • Modern stoics are those who transform: ^90615b

    • Fear into prudence.
    • Pain into information.
    • Mistakes into initiation.
    • Desire into undertaking.
    • Things can be taken from us, but not good deeds and virtue.
      • Such as curiosity.

  • Growth and development, movement and speed, are nothing.

    • What matter how fragile what you are building is.

  • Keep the extremes of any situation as separate as you can.

    • It also could be called bimodal strategy.
    • Extreme risk aversion on one side, and extreme risk taking in the other.
      • A good example is a portfolio investment.
        • Put 90% into strong stocks that generate nothing and usually are boring.
        • Put another 10% into high volatility zone with desire to hit a jackpot.
      • My example, from former life of top manager.
        • All downsides, no upsides.
        • Constant stress, working hours not 9 to 5 but 4am to 8pm.
        • Not time for family, children, sport, pursuing own projects and interests.
      • My example from current career as a teacher.
        • All upsides, no downsides.
        • No stress, working hours from 8 to 2.
        • Lots of time for family, sport, interesting projects.
    • But to do it, you have to experience lots of action.
      • Do a serial barbell exercise: pure action, then pure reflection.
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