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by miscellaneous 3944 days ago
> He [Nassim] is actually big fan of slow and dull, tightly controlled systems ("antifragile")

Please watch the first 5 mins of this interview (or all of it) with him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehXxoUH1AlM

"Antifragile systems like volatility"

He is literally advocating the opposite of what you said. Governments are centralized and fragile (don't like volatility) hence their propensity to regulate volatility. He directly blames (large) government for the GFC - see 4:40 in the video.

1 comments

> (don't like volatility)

Antifragility is not liking volatility; it is dislike but acceptance of it.

This is what he said:

“(4) Build in redundancy and overcompensation

“Redundancy in systems is a key to antifragility. As Taleb suggests, nature loves to over-insure itself, whether in the case of providing each of us with two kidneys or excess capacity in our neural system or arterial apparatus. Overcompensation is a form of redundancy and it can help systems to opportunistically respond to unanticipated events. What seems like inefficiency or wasted resources like extra cash in the bank or stockpiles of food can actually prove to be enormously helpful, not just to survive unexpected stress, but to provide the resources required to address windows of opportunity that often arise in times of turmoil. This perspective helps to put into context the praise of inefficiency in Bill Janeway’s important new book, Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy."

Well, to build in redundancy you need market manipulation (FDIC for example), otherwise markets will tend to overfitness. If you are claiming that "antifragility" = laissez-faire you are completely wrong; who will enforce the redundancy?

> who will enforce the redundancy?

Who enforced the redundancy of humans possessing two kidneys? If you are a creationist, then I guess we have different starting assumptions.

Assuming that you aren't, then you would understand that redundancy in humans literally evolved from randomness and volatility. Evolution is a hill climbing algorithm - the organisms that survive the best reproduce more and become more prevalent. For me, nature is perfectly laissez-faire, there are no circuit breakers in nature, there is no enforced stability.