Incerto 4-Book Bundle

When you are fragile, you depend on things following the exact planned course, with as little deviation as possible—for deviations are more harmful than helpful. This is why the fragile needs to be very predictive in its approach, and, conversely, predictive systems cause fragility.

You want to be Phoenix, or possibly Hydra. Otherwise the sword of Damocles will get you.

And this artificial aging comes from stifling internal antifragility.

The Italian political and legal philosopher Bruno Leoni has argued in favor of the robustness of judge-based law (owing to its diversity) as compared to explicit and rigid codifications. True, the choice of a court could be a lottery—but it helps prevent large-scale mistakes.

Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds.

An agency problem, for instance, is present with the stockbroker and medical doctor, whose ultimate interest is their own checking account, not your financial and medical health, respectively, and who give you advice that is geared to benefit themselves. Or with politicians working on their career.

My friend Chad benefited from the kind of disorder that is less and less prevalent thanks to the modern disease of touristification. This is my term for an aspect of modern life that treats humans as washing machines, with simplified mechanical responses—and a detailed user’s manual. It is the systematic removal of uncertainty and randomness from t... See more

And if you make more when you are right than you are hurt when you are wrong, then you will benefit, in the long run, from volatility (and the reverse).

Paradoxically, many government interventions and social policies end up hurting the weak and consolidating the established.