Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Reader Jonc wrote with a report from the recent Princeton lecture. He graciously allowed me to reprint his letter here:
Dear John
I attended the event with South Jersey artist Nancy Jackson.. The audio visual gremlins normally present were not at this presentation of NNT’s concept of Antifragility… they were at both the Stevens and Columbia versions. At His appearance at the Harvard Club for the Black Swan of Cairo he was not only hard to hear but nearly invisible to the paying attendees… At Dodds Auditorium, all 100 or so attendees could hear almost every word… HOWEVER, The graphic of the hydra was more reminiscent of a pudgy Muppet than the fearsome 9 headed serpent with poisonous halitosis of the long dead swamp dweller of Lerna in Argolis…
Unlike either the Stevens or the Columbia audiences… (Except for the reserved seating section of students) the Princeton audience looked like it was gathered from the local AARP Mailing list… Taleb’s esteemed Princeton collaborator Daniel Kahneman was not to be seen.
There was a Ivy like subdued resistance to the convention tipping concept in the audience … The Q&A pushback was inept, feeble and somewhat desperate… Resistance was futile… If all is normal Ivy the Princeton Resistance is now in their campus lair dipping verbal arrows in Hydra venom for more aggressive written attacks on NNT and his antifragility concept from a safer distance …
For irony among the honored photographs of heroes hung on the wall of honor of The WWS Dodds Auditorium where this presentation was made, were Paul Krugman and Allen Binder…
Just my 2 cents,
Jonc
PS I purchased my 57th copy of The Black Swan and had NNT autograph it for Nancy..
And later…
The Daily Princetonian piece you used is correct as far as it goes but does not mention any Q&A… NNT has both supporters and detractors at Princeton…Many of the detractors have vested career interests in the status quo..
I was there early and stayed late to listen to the murmuring…NNT had less faculty support in the room than usual… He was in the land of Krugman and Binder after all…
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
No sign of a recording as of yet. Will post as soon as one comes available.
Taleb opened his lecture with a question: “What is the opposite of fragile?”
After a few attempted answers from the audience, Taleb explained that there is no antonym for fragile in common English. He introduced the term “antifragile” as one of the terms he uses to view the stability of systems — financial, political or otherwise — the other most important term being “fragile.” Fragile systems, he explained, have a higher risk of “downside,” meaning that that the introduction of a new variable is more dangerous, while antifragile systems, by contrast, are more resilient.
Photo by Margaret Hua
via Taleb lectures on market fragility – The Daily Princetonian.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
ANTIFRAGILE
On Things That Gain From Disorder
I opposed the last title… This one at least covers the Triad and other things in book
See also: Fan contributed cover mockup.
via ANTIFRAGILE On… | Facebook.
ANTIFRAGILE
The Necessity of Disorder
via ANTIFRAGILE The… | Facebook.
Wow, barbell as a verb! Get it while it’s hot.
How to barbell the Soccer Mom; An Antifragile Education
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/education.pdf
via How to barbell the… | Facebook.
Woodrow Wilson School, Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall
Washington and Prospect Streets
Princeton, NJ 08544
Phone: 609-258-0157
See map: Google Maps
Best-selling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb will speak at the Woodrow Wilson School on Tuesday, April 10, 2012. Taleb’s talk is part of the School’s “Economic Recovery: Perils, Politics and Possibilities” thematic lecture series. A book sale and signing of his New York Times bestseller, “The Black Swan,” along with a public reception will immediately follow the talk in the Shultz dining room.
via Famed Author, Nassim Taleb, Discusses His Best-Selling Book, “The Black Swan.” Book Sale and Signing Following Discussion | AllPrinceton.
Nassim Taleb, famous for his prescient identification of rare ‘black swan’ events that are correlated with economic catastrophes, recently proposed the notion of ‘anti-fragility’ as a way to conceptualise the reproduction of markets and output in the face of such events.
In fact, anti-fragile structures and processes are all around us — suffusing life itself.
To define anti-fragility, Taleb asks what would be the true opposite of ‘fragile’. Starting with the Sword of Damocles, he chooses as its opposite, not the robustness of the Phoenix rising from the ashes, but the inventiveness of the Hydra, who sprouts two heads whenever one is cut off.
via The anti-fragile nature of life › Opinion (ABC Science).
A good day for a so-so writer is when he manages to write 1000 words. For a fine writer, it is when he removes a 1000 words.
via A good day for a… | Facebook.