Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder

Author and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb offers a definitive solution for how to gain from disorder and chaos, while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. Taleb argues that many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What he calls the “antifragile” is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish.

Speaker Details

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to problems of uncertainty, probability, and knowledge. He spent nearly two decades as a businessman and quantitative trader before becoming a full-time philosophical essayist and academic researcher in 2006. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute. His main subject matter is “decision making under opacity”—that is, a map and a protocol on how we should live in a world we don’t understand.

Date:
Speakers:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Affiliation:
New York University’s Polytechnic Institute
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