It took me quite a while to finish Nassim Nicholas’ Taleb book “Antifragile – Things that Gain from Disorder” (see it at Amazon here). Not because it is a bad book, but because I think I am too stupid to understand it at the first go.
Which is a shame. There are concepts in that book which we can all use in our lives. Like not taking too many drugs – or better yet, no drugs at all – if there is nothing wrong with us. We should not stick to routines, as nature likes a bit of chaos and randomness. Or more generally, perform actions when pay off can be big, and the action does not cost us much. We should not believe anyone (especially experts) who have stakes in what they are talking about or are getting paid for their expertise. But those are simple conclusions, the book gives much more than that, including some truths about economists, their advice and approach to our economy. Here one can find a lot of technical explanations and theories… What I wrote here sounds simple and silly, but belive me, the book has much, much more to offer with much more complexity.
Possibly here lies the problem for me – there is a lot of technicalities in that book, theory chases theory and my brain simply could not catch up or understand all what was written. I am sure that I will read that book again, in a year or so, maybe some more will get through to me. I picked a few books from the list of sources, maybe those will give me some more insight or background. Then maybe I will be smarter… Or get closer to becoming antifragile.