Monday 9 September 2019

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb


But recall that this chapter is about layering, units, hierarchies, fractal structure, and the difference between the interest of a unit and those of its subunits. So it is often the mistakes of others that benefit the rest of us—and, sadly, not them. We saw that stressors are information, in the right context. For the antifragile, harm from errors should be less than the benefits. We are talking about some, not all, errors, of course; those that do not destroy a system help prevent larger calamities. The engineer and historian of engineering Henry Petroski presents a very elegant point. Had the Titanic not had that famous accident, as fatal as it was, we would have kept building larger and larger ocean liners and the next disaster would have been even more tragic. So the people who perished were sacrificed for the greater good; they unarguably saved more lives than were lost. The story of the Titanic illustrates the difference between gains for the system and harm to some of its individual parts.
(from Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

The SS Imperator of the Hamburg America line was launched in 1912. He, so called instead the normal ‘She’ by request of the Kaiser, was bigger than the Titanic as were the later built Vaterland and Bismark.
Imperator
A present day super liner ‘Symphony of the Seas’ is five times bigger than the Titanic was.

An imprudent captain was a factor in the Titanic sinking. More of those and many more boats of any size whatever would sink. Consider the opera buffa elements of the sinking of the Costa Concordia.
Vada a bordo, cazzo!

Antifragile is a little weak in spots with a tiller corroded by blowhardia causing it to list when dodging reefs. Will she reach port? Probably but for God’s sake do not go so close to the Statue of Liberty.

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