---
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title: "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: 3 (Incerto)"
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---

# Revolutionary antifragile concept Thrives on volatility Deep interdisciplinary insight Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: 3 (Incerto)

**Price:** € 34.46
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## Summary

> ⚡ Embrace chaos, thrive in disorder — be truly antifragile!

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- **What is this?** Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: 3 (Incerto)
- **How much does it cost?** € 34.46 with free shipping
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## Key Features

- • **Blueprint for the Future:** Equip yourself with a mindset designed for unpredictable markets, innovation, and life’s volatility.
- • **Challenge the Status Quo:** Question politicians, bankers, economists, and conventional wisdom with Taleb’s unapologetic critique.
- • **Cross-Disciplinary Wisdom:** Blend ancient philosophy, modern economics, and cutting-edge risk theory in one powerful read.
- • **Master Uncertainty Like a Pro:** Learn to not just survive but *gain* from chaos and disorder.
- • **Beyond Resilience—Get Antifragile:** Discover why antifragile systems improve with stress, unlike fragile or merely robust ones.

## Overview

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a groundbreaking book that redefines how we understand risk, uncertainty, and disorder. Part of the acclaimed Incerto series, it introduces the concept of antifragility—systems that grow stronger under stress and volatility. Combining philosophy, economics, history, and practical wisdom, Taleb offers a bold blueprint for thriving in an unpredictable world, challenging conventional thinking and empowering readers to harness chaos for success.

## Description

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don't understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes . Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call "efficient" not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile "Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining." -- The Economist "A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives." -- Newsweek

Review: 5 things Nassim Nicholas Taleb hates - The third book of Taleb's Incerto trilogy was published in November 2012 and is now available in paperback. His first two books, Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan, sold so well that he was paid an advance of $4m for the final instalment. Antifragile is an interesting read both intellectually and personally. Taleb famously gives little away to journalists but in this book his personality shines out through his writing. So emotionally charged is the book, I thought it would be appropriate to review it by reference to the subjects contained that come in for the most vitriol from Taleb. 1. Bankers Readers familiar with Taleb's other writings will already know how he feels about bankers. Taleb's definition of antifragility (systems that get stronger under volatility, as opposed to fragile ones that break) stems from his work in banking. One criticism that is already gaining much ground elsewhere is the absence of "skin in the game" for traders gambling with their clients' money. But Taleb's dislike of bankers is not just an academic one. Personal insults abound, including a "suit" held to task for getting a porter to carry his bags to the gym. 2. Politicians Fragility is often seen at a relatively simple level, a glass being the obvious example, whereas antifragility is a property of complex systems - the human body, human populations or markets. Politicians come under fire on (at least!) two counts. First, they cause chaos by interfering with systems that they do not understand. In particular, interventions by politicians tend to favour eradication of error, which increases fragility and risk of collapse. Secondly, and more strongly, politicians frequently gain personal advantage at the cost of others by talking a good game that they do not practice in their own lives. 3. Economists I don't think I need to explain why Taleb hates economists or give examples from the book. Instead I just want to mention Taleb's rather touching fondness for Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Despite Taleb naming the Stiglitz syndrome (predicting the future inconsistently and only taking credit for the ones that turn out to be correct) after him, Stiglitz does not come in for the same strength of insults dished out to other "fragilistas" and I am amused by my impression Taleb secretly quite likes him. 4. Alternative Medicine Taleb has a disdain for all modern medicine, and a whole section of the book explains the wrongheadedness of risking a serious issue by using insufficiently tested medicine for a non-life-threatening condition. The terrible example of treating morning sickness with thalidomide makes this point well. But don't confuse Taleb's skepticism with a belief in alternative therapies - he "went postal" on receiving a letter of support from one such practitioner saying she understood how he felt. 5. Orange Juice Taleb's hatred for orange juice is an example of a wider disdain for the modern diet. He reveals his personal food rules, and very fascinating they are: no liquids that have not existed for at least one thousand years (i.e. wine, water and coffee only), no fruit not present in the ancient Mediterranean (no pineapples, pawpaws or other exotica) and observance of Greek Orthodox fasts for health rather than religious reasons. He considers oranges to be the equivalent of candy, as the modern variety have been intentionally bred for their sweetness. I found Antifragile to be thought provoking and very entertaining. It is full of contradictions and inconsistencies, but the sincere passion behind the main themes gives the book its charm. The most delicious irony is that according to Taleb's own criteria - a book is more likely to contain accurate useful ideas the longer it has been in existence - the reader made their first mistake in choosing to pick the book up.
Review: One of the greatest books ever written - The popularity of Taleb's books and ideas is perhaps better captured on his Facebook page than desertcart, where he has thousands of likes and hundreds participate in discussions he stimulates. There are many people who, probably like myself, consider him one of the finest minds of the past 50 years. It is hard to capture quite what he does. I expect that if you read his book from one perspective, such as business or economics or politics or risk management that you will be interested by some parts of it and uninterested by others. But If like me you are truly interested in society, human nature and potential then this is a book full of profound insight and deductions. Sure, it is opinionated. He seems to be opinionated to his own detriment rather than to sell a book, as he has to deal with things like death threats and hate mail etc, and he has bulked up to be like a bodyguard to help with this. If you are a philosopher who suspects that there are some fundamental misconceptions within modern society, then Taleb is bound to stimulate you with his work. He doesn't just rely on personal experience and logic and opinion to create and illustrate his arguments, but a life-time's intelligent reading, and three years seclusion and study (approx). Taleb in a way trained himself in literature and art before moving onto statistics and then to pretty much every subject that exists. And this comes through. He gives a holistic interpretation of reality, human knowledge, society, maths etc. But this is backed up, in the appendix, by truly insightful qualified debunking of some economic theories such as the Ricardo-Smith comparative advantage thingy. Overall, Taleb comes through as a truly original thinker. His ideas are new philosophy, but he somehow manages to take a different direction to the postmodernists who in a way tackled similar subjects, drawing in contrast on historic wisdom as a theme. Things tend to survive for a reason. And he takes the rare point of view (which may never be repeated) of someone who has managed to work within and alongside academia, but has successfully preserved his skepticism of academic thought and knowledge. But perhaps more than anything, his book with its countless illustrative diversions will teach you so much about the history of good ideas and the makers of world culture.

## Features

- Antifragile Things That Gain from Disorder

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | 672,720 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 8 in Finance & Stock Market History 13 in Business & Economic History 40 in Philosophy (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 7,940 Reviews |

## Images

![Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: 3 (Incerto) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71bPC5sjX5L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 things Nassim Nicholas Taleb hates
*by A***N on 18 August 2013*

The third book of Taleb's Incerto trilogy was published in November 2012 and is now available in paperback. His first two books, Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan, sold so well that he was paid an advance of $4m for the final instalment. Antifragile is an interesting read both intellectually and personally. Taleb famously gives little away to journalists but in this book his personality shines out through his writing. So emotionally charged is the book, I thought it would be appropriate to review it by reference to the subjects contained that come in for the most vitriol from Taleb. 1. Bankers Readers familiar with Taleb's other writings will already know how he feels about bankers. Taleb's definition of antifragility (systems that get stronger under volatility, as opposed to fragile ones that break) stems from his work in banking. One criticism that is already gaining much ground elsewhere is the absence of "skin in the game" for traders gambling with their clients' money. But Taleb's dislike of bankers is not just an academic one. Personal insults abound, including a "suit" held to task for getting a porter to carry his bags to the gym. 2. Politicians Fragility is often seen at a relatively simple level, a glass being the obvious example, whereas antifragility is a property of complex systems - the human body, human populations or markets. Politicians come under fire on (at least!) two counts. First, they cause chaos by interfering with systems that they do not understand. In particular, interventions by politicians tend to favour eradication of error, which increases fragility and risk of collapse. Secondly, and more strongly, politicians frequently gain personal advantage at the cost of others by talking a good game that they do not practice in their own lives. 3. Economists I don't think I need to explain why Taleb hates economists or give examples from the book. Instead I just want to mention Taleb's rather touching fondness for Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Despite Taleb naming the Stiglitz syndrome (predicting the future inconsistently and only taking credit for the ones that turn out to be correct) after him, Stiglitz does not come in for the same strength of insults dished out to other "fragilistas" and I am amused by my impression Taleb secretly quite likes him. 4. Alternative Medicine Taleb has a disdain for all modern medicine, and a whole section of the book explains the wrongheadedness of risking a serious issue by using insufficiently tested medicine for a non-life-threatening condition. The terrible example of treating morning sickness with thalidomide makes this point well. But don't confuse Taleb's skepticism with a belief in alternative therapies - he "went postal" on receiving a letter of support from one such practitioner saying she understood how he felt. 5. Orange Juice Taleb's hatred for orange juice is an example of a wider disdain for the modern diet. He reveals his personal food rules, and very fascinating they are: no liquids that have not existed for at least one thousand years (i.e. wine, water and coffee only), no fruit not present in the ancient Mediterranean (no pineapples, pawpaws or other exotica) and observance of Greek Orthodox fasts for health rather than religious reasons. He considers oranges to be the equivalent of candy, as the modern variety have been intentionally bred for their sweetness. I found Antifragile to be thought provoking and very entertaining. It is full of contradictions and inconsistencies, but the sincere passion behind the main themes gives the book its charm. The most delicious irony is that according to Taleb's own criteria - a book is more likely to contain accurate useful ideas the longer it has been in existence - the reader made their first mistake in choosing to pick the book up.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ One of the greatest books ever written
*by T***S on 14 January 2013*

The popularity of Taleb's books and ideas is perhaps better captured on his Facebook page than Amazon, where he has thousands of likes and hundreds participate in discussions he stimulates. There are many people who, probably like myself, consider him one of the finest minds of the past 50 years. It is hard to capture quite what he does. I expect that if you read his book from one perspective, such as business or economics or politics or risk management that you will be interested by some parts of it and uninterested by others. But If like me you are truly interested in society, human nature and potential then this is a book full of profound insight and deductions. Sure, it is opinionated. He seems to be opinionated to his own detriment rather than to sell a book, as he has to deal with things like death threats and hate mail etc, and he has bulked up to be like a bodyguard to help with this. If you are a philosopher who suspects that there are some fundamental misconceptions within modern society, then Taleb is bound to stimulate you with his work. He doesn't just rely on personal experience and logic and opinion to create and illustrate his arguments, but a life-time's intelligent reading, and three years seclusion and study (approx). Taleb in a way trained himself in literature and art before moving onto statistics and then to pretty much every subject that exists. And this comes through. He gives a holistic interpretation of reality, human knowledge, society, maths etc. But this is backed up, in the appendix, by truly insightful qualified debunking of some economic theories such as the Ricardo-Smith comparative advantage thingy. Overall, Taleb comes through as a truly original thinker. His ideas are new philosophy, but he somehow manages to take a different direction to the postmodernists who in a way tackled similar subjects, drawing in contrast on historic wisdom as a theme. Things tend to survive for a reason. And he takes the rare point of view (which may never be repeated) of someone who has managed to work within and alongside academia, but has successfully preserved his skepticism of academic thought and knowledge. But perhaps more than anything, his book with its countless illustrative diversions will teach you so much about the history of good ideas and the makers of world culture.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The alternative to the impossible prediction of Black Swans.
*by M***N on 27 December 2012*

In Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, Taleb predicted the financial crisis of 2008. But more than predicting that particular crisis he advanced the idea that Black Swans, which are large scale, unpredictable and irregular events of massive consequence, cannot be predicted and consequently forecasts and predictions by experts or anyone else are useless. This left me with a conundrum. Doesn't any activity in life whether it is marraige or business investment require a prediction? In Antifragile, Taleb addresses this issue. He proposes replacing prediction with classifying systems and things as Fragile, Robust of Antifragile. He argues that things can be fragile but the opposite of the fragile is not robust, which are simply things that would break with greater difficult than the fragile. It is the "antifragile" that benefit from shocks, and thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder and stressors. The fundamental idea of the book is that by grasping the mechanisms of antifragility we can build a systematic and broad guide to non predictive decision making under uncertainty in business, politics, medicine and life in general. It is far easier to figure out if something is fragile rather than predict the occurrence of an event that may harm it. The key is the emphasis on designing antifragility into the system. You cannot say with any reliability that a certain remote event is more likely than another but you can state with a lot more confidence that an object or structure is more fragile than another should a certain event happen. He then goes on to argue that by removing stressors from the system or minimsing volatility, fragility is being built into the system. He draws the parallel with weight training which, by increasing stress, creates a stronger body; or immunisation that by injecting small doses of nasty substances into the body, immunity is generated. The problem with artificially suppressing volatility or minimising risk is not just that the system tends to become extremely fragile; it is also that , at the same time , it masks exhibition of visible risks. So silent risks accumulate under the surface. Stability promoted by political and economic policy makers, intended to inhibit fluctuations, tend to have the opposite effect - they result in more massive blowups. Two central elements of modernity are naive interventionism and the unconditional belief in the idea of scientific prediction. He maintains that anything where there is naive intervention will have iatrogenics (harm caused by the healer). He qualifies this by saying he is not against intervention, but he warns against naive intervention and the lack of awareness of the harm done by it. For example intervening to limit size (of companies, airports, sources of pollution) concentration and speed are beneficial in reducing Black Swan risks. Interventionism in the form of "look what I did for you" should be replaced by inaction. Taleb is allergic to theories which are not founded on practice and he is venomous about universities and the majority of academic life. He sees academic theory as reflecting the illusion that you know exactly where you are going and assuming today what your preferences will be tomorrow. Additionallly never ask people what they want to go, or where they they think they should go. Instead create options for yourself and for others. The important difference between theory and practice lies precisely in the detection of the sequence of events and retaining the sequence in memory. Life is lived forward but remembered backwards. The ability to switch a course of action is an option to change. Options are what allows you to benefit from the positive side of uncertainty without the corresponding serious harm from the negative side. I think you can see I found the key messages of the book stimulating. But the presentation is often dense and rambling. He displays his fascination with in classic Greek and Roman philosophies beyond my reach and luckily my kindle has a dictionary because frequently vocabulary unfamiliar to me is used! He repeats his points and there is a lack of structure but the advantage is he provides rich examples and illustrations. Not an easy book but well worth the effort.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto)
- The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" (Incerto)
- Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto)

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