① Describe How Stress Makes Us More Vulnerable To Disease Essay

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‘How Stress Makes Us Sharper’ - Ian Robertson - TEDxTrinityCollegeDublin

They increase the knowledge of children and elders also and make them more creative. On the other hand, there are so many disadvantages. By seeing TV channels we keep away ourselves from our social life, we just come home, switch on the TV and see different channels. We have no links with the outside life. Parents are busy with their jobs, and children come home and see the odd channels, that are not good for them. It also causes health problems like weak eye side, loss of interest in studies. Last but not the least, TV has a great source of information and entertainment, but should see it for limited time, just to be feel relax, do get addicted to it. Nevertheless, it has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it is often easier to find work and there is usually a choice of public transport, so you do not need to own a car.

Also, there are a lot of interesting things to do and places to see. For example, you can eat in a good restaurant, visit museums, and go to the theatres and to concerts. What is more, when you want to relax, you can usually find a park where you can feed the ducks or just sit on a park bench and read a book. All in all, city life is full of bustle and variety and you need never feel bored. However, for every ever plus there is a minus. For one thing, you might have a job, but unless it is very well paid, you will not be able to afford many of the things that there are to do, Because living in a city is often very expensive. It is particularly difficult to find food and cheap accommodation. What is more, public transport is sometimes crowded and dirty, particularly during rush hour, and even the parks can become very crowded, especially on Sundays when it seems that every city-dweller is looking for some open space and green grass.

Last of all, despite all the crowds, it is still possible to feel very lonely in a city. In conclusion, I think that city life can be particularly appealing to young people, who like the excitement of the city and do not mind the noise and pollution. However, many people, when they get older and particularly when they have young children, often prefer the peace and fresh air of the countryside. However, using nuclear power has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of nuclear power are numerous.

First of all, it is inexpensive, it is more abundant than fossil fuel, and it is easy to transport. Secondly, the energy generated is very efficient and the waste remaining is compact. Nuclear reactors need very little fuel and the fuel only has to be changed approximately once every three years. In addition, nuclear power is very environmentally friendly. It produces hardly any air pollution, and it releases less radiation into the atmosphere than coal-burning power plants.

Moreover the chances of a meltdown or a radiation leak are extremely small. Furthermore, it is a lot safer than most people think. There are many safety features which make nuclear power one of the safest electricity sources. On the other hand, the disadvantages of nuclear power are plentiful, such as radiation leaks, nuclear waste, and the chance of a meltdown. It must remain deep below the surface of the earth for millions of years until it loses its radioactivity.

Moreover, the chance of meltdowns as well as less severe reactor accidents creates panic and opposition in areas surrounding nuclear power plants. Furthermore, radiation of nuclear power has been a proven link to cancer. To sum up, nuclear plants are safe and reliable Although they have a few disadvantages. They are less likely to cause deaths than coal-burning plants. In my opinion, high-level radioactive waste must be stored in underground containment - permanently. It is fast and easy way to get a lot of valuable information.

However, some people believe that the Internet creates many problems. From my point of view I think that the Internet brings us advantages as well as disadvantages. First of all, I think that the Internet brings us many benefits. People can have access to the latest news, weather, traffic, bid-and-asked quotations, and so on. Another important benefit is that the Internet is a great means of communication.

A few years ago it was rather difficult to imagine that it would be possible to communicate with people from all around the world. Students have the opportunity to speak to the professors from prestigious universities, ask their opinions and extend their range of interests. People have the opportunity to communicate with the people from other countries, find out their customs, traditions and even visit each other. I think that the Internet makes our world smaller and friendlier.

From the other hand, many questions and difficulties arose with the appearance of the Internet. For example, children got the easy access to the information they are not supposed to read. Also, people's security and privacy are often violated through steeling and gathering information about people and then selling it. Many banks had to increase their Internet security Because of hacking.

However, I believe that Internet gave us more advantages and opportunities than disadvantages and problems. First of all, the latest inventions of humankind dramatically improved our life. Nowadays we can move from one place to another more quickly, we do not spend much time cooking; we have many different recourses of information and means of communication. So, our life now is more dynamic and changeable. During our day we receive a huge amount of information and process it. Students at the same time have more resources to get information they need. They can go to a library, the nearest bookstore, or borrow it from a friend or even download it from an Internet. I think it is great. Instead of waiting for one's turn to get a book in a library, one can print it from a file downloaded earlier.

The great thing about it that one can print only those pages he is interested in and also make marks on the pages to mark important ideas. Another important aspect of this is the advantages of using computer the greatest invention of the last century. Students do not have to spend their time by writing and re-writing many papers. It is really time-consuming. They just type information in and may use many useful features such as "copy", "past", "delete", "save", and so on. Also, sometimes students do not have to write down lectures Because they already have them on their computers.

Internet plays an important role in our life now. We can communicate with the people who are on another part of the planet. We also can get the latest news very quickly. People can ask for a piece of advice or find different kinds of information on the Internet. Students can get their degree on-line, register for classes, communicate with professors, take tests and even listen to a lecture. I think the great part in it that students may more effectively arrange their time.

They can get their task by e-mail and stay home to do it. It really saves time and makes studying more fun especially if a person has to work in order to pay his or her tuition. To summarize, I think that many last inventions improved students' life and allowed them to concentrate more on studying. Technology has entered the lives of even the poorest members of society, and it is very rare to find anyone who does not have some form of modern technology in their home, such as a TV or a food processor. Without the benefits that technology brings, the world would be a much harder place to live in. For example, how would any business operate without faxes, photocopiers or telephones?

In conclusion, although technology has the potential to provide a better quality of life for everyone, it is also capable of destroying everything within a very short space of time. As such it should be developed with caution and should never be allowed to take the place of human contact, Because this is what ultimately holds a society together. Thousands of young people are mortally ill Because of incurable disease.

They are all kept alive in artificial ways. They have no chance to recover completely, but most legal systems do not allow doctors to end their lives. However, fatally ill patients should be allowed to die for several reasons. The first reason is that medical costs are very high. The cost of a hospital room can be as much as a hundred dollars per day and even more.

The cost of medicines and medical tests are also high. The family of the patient is responsible for these expenses. Consequently, there would be a terrible financial burden for them for a long time. The second reason is that the family suffers. The nurses can only give the terminally ill patient minimum care. The family must spend time caring for the special needs of their loved one. They should talk, touch, and hold the patient even though he or she may be in a coma. Also, it is very difficult to watch a loved one in a coma Because his or her condition does not improve.

The third and most important reason is that the patients have no chance of recovery. They can never lead normal lives and must be kept alive by life — support machines. They may need a machine to breathe and a feeding tube to take in food. They are more dead than alive and will never get better. For example, in , Karen Quinlan became unconscious after the she swallowed some drugs and drank alcohol. She was kept alive by machines. Her parents knew that her body and brain would never be normal. Therefore, they asked the court to allow their daughter to die. She was able to breathe on her own, but she died nine years later in June of In conclusion, Because terminally ill patients have no chance to live normal lives, they should be allowed to die with dignity.

Therefore, the family should have the right to ask to turn off the life-support machines or to stop further medical treatment. On a personal level, the media can be very entertaining and informative. Reading about the lifestyles of the rich and famous is amusing and can help us forget our own problems. As far as politics are concerned, the free press is important as it often reveals the truth behind all the speeches and accusations. Unfortunately, most newspapers tend to favor a particular political party, meaning that their articles are not objective. From an educational point of view, newspapers and magazines are an important source of up-to-date information and in-depth articles, reporting on both local and international events.

Opponents of this view say that newspapers do not always give correct information and facts are often falsely reported. Thus, they are not always appropriate learning material for students. On the whole, I believe that the existence of the free press is valuable to our society, as long as its power is used wisely and objectively in an effort to inform the public, rather than mislead it. Obviously, the First teachers we have in our lives in most cases are our parents. They teach us to walk, to speak, and to have good manners before we reach "the real world.

It is almost certain that our parents are the best teachers at the beginning of our lives, which actually corresponds to the parents' role in nature. Parents are most committed and involved in teaching their children; they have a kind of instinct to sacrifice a part of themselves for the betterment of their children. They love us and have great patience while passing down their knowledge to us. They wish us success and thus will not teach us bad things. And of course, implicit learning occurs when children unconsciously copy some of their parents' habits and styles of behavior.

During the Second stage of child development, adolescence, parents can still be in the best position to offer advice even though the children might not accept it. In this case, perhaps the child's friends would be the best teachers. Adolescents are notoriously rebellious in many cultures and may automatically reject any advice from their parents. For instance, my First marriage was solely a matter of doing the opposite of what my parents wanted when they tried to intrude in offering their advice. In such matters, parents should be much more flexible and try to be partners with their children. So we can see that being a teacher of a growing child becomes a more and more complicated case as time passes and many parents are simply not able to meet the increased demands.

On the other hand, I would say that parents are not professional teachers and they tend to be very biased by their love of their children. So wishing good things and an easy life may prevent children from maturing. In any case, parents usually can present only one viewpoint of the world, while good teaching should be based on different attitudes. Thus, when children go to school and have a great diversity of teachers, they learn much more than their parents could probably give them.

Furthermore, once our parents get older, they become more conservative and cannot always be objective in regard to modern trends and fashions. We need to take their advice with caution during that period. However, there are some kinds of intuition which I believe should be shared between relatives about what everybody needs, and there is a great love which exists in families that still makes our parents very good teachers and advisers at any time. In conclusion, while parents are not the ideal teachers, and well-rounded children will generally need a great diversity of teachers in their lives in order to have a more accurate view of the world, parents are generally the most committed of all teachers and have the greatest emotional investment in their children and their future.

It is also an effective way of selling new products, and many people argue that it effectively influences us towards unnecessary spending. Others, However, disagree. They say advertising can't sell any product; it can only help to sell a product people want to buy. One of the main arguments for advertising is that it generates wealth for a country. That is to say, more goods are sold and more taxes are paid, which help governments to pay for essential services, such as education and health care. Moreover, there is an increase in the number of jobs for producing, marketing, and servicing. These goods help to reduce the unemployment problem, which is also a great advantage for a country's economy.

What is more, advertising raises money for a huge number of sporting events and artistic performances. Otherwise, these may not be held without sponsorship from companies who advertise their products. These events may disappear due to lack of funding. In other words, although consumerism is promoted through advertising, it is beneficial to both the consumer and society. On the other hand, advertisements can cause people to be dissatisfied with what they already have, and make them want more. Being exposed again and again to products which one cannot afford produces frustration and dissatisfaction.

Furthermore, not all parents are in a position to afford the goods which their children see advertised and want to possess. This often leads to feelings of inadequacy, especially among the less well-off. In addition to this, advertising creates materialism and causes people to place too much importance on material goods. The fact that people are prepared to work long hours, or even turn to crime in order to gain the goods on offer, shows that advertising persuades people to go to great lengths to keep the same standard of living as those they see around them.

It is a fact that neither crime nor the stress caused by overworking can benefit society. In conclusion, I believe that advertising generates wealth by encouraging people to spend more money, but it also supports greed and breeds dissatisfaction by putting us off from more vital things. Billions of dollars are spent internationally on preventing drug use, treating addicts, and fighting drug-related crime. Although drugs threaten many societies, their effects can be combated successfully. This essay looks at some of the effects of drug use on society, and suggests some solutions to the problem.

Drug abuse causes multiple problems for countries and communities. The medical and psychological effects are very obvious. Addicts cannot function as normal members of society. They neglect or abuse their families, and eventually require expensive treatment or hospitalization. The second effect is crime. Huge police resources are needed to fight smuggling and dealing. Criminal gangs and mafia underworlds develop with the money from drugs. However, the menace of drugs can be fought. Education is the First battle. Children need to be told at home and in school about drugs. People need to be aware of the effects so that they can avoid this problem. A second approach is to increase police manpower to stop dealers and to enforce the law. However, the main target should be the user.

Families and counselors need to talk to children and people at risk. Parents need to look at their children and help them. Jobs are needed to give people a role in society. In conclusion, although the problem of drugs may seem impossible to eliminate, there are concrete steps that can be taken to weaken the hold of drugs on society. The danger from drugs is too great to ignore. You need to know that attending university is really important. If you finish university and get a degree, you can find a good job. You will make some friends and meet different people. You will also learn some others language. However being a university student is really difficult Because there are more responsibilities, more expenses, and time management.

Being a university student you will have many responsibilities at school and home. At school you must do everyday works that is given to you. You will have work everyday in class. You need to do every thing that your teachers give to you in order to get good grades. If you went back home, you will have some responsibilities at home too. The responsibilities are feeding the pigs, cleaning the house, washing clothes and other important things that needed to done at home. Universities have a lot of expenses. You will pay for the taxi, your lunch, tuition, books, and other materials that are needed for a university student. You must buy these Because if you did not buy these you can also fail your class. However, attending university is really good Because you will get the refund checks and other money that you can apply when you in university.

The bad things are if you have been suspended from Pell Grant you will pay for your class but it really expensive. It is important to know how the school is really important to all the people. Being a university student you must think about time management. Time management is really important to each student. If you know how to manage your time you will be the best student. You need to manage your time for studying and time to for individual works that you need to do. It is not really easy to manage your time. If you follow your time you will find how it can help you when you are in university and also at home. You can do your work at the different time.

You must prepare you time for every semester. To conclude, being a university student important if you want to be a successful person, but it is really difficult Because of more responsibilities, more expense and time management. However you need to try you best to finish school and find a job so that you can help your family some day.

It is not easy to be a university student but you need to be responsible for your life in the future. In fact, it is so common that it is difficult to imagine a household without TV. This shows just how important television is. To understand how important television is, we can look at the variety of programs and valuable content it offers and the purposes it serves in daily life. First of all, there are many different types of programs on television. The viewer can watch a weather report to prepare for the day. Cartoons and sport provide relaxation and fun. School programs, documentaries and the news teach us about the world.

And advertisements inform us about products and new ideas. Secondly, the content is very appealing because it is realistic and up to date. As TV is a medium that combines moving, color images and sound, it resembles real life, so the viewers can identify with what they see. Furthermore, modern technology means that the content is up to date, For example, news reports can be broadcast live and from all over the world. This means that information is available almost anywhere at any time.

People seek entertainment and distraction, and TV can give us that in the form of films or cartoons. People want education, information and instruction because they are inquisitive and like to learn. TV gives us this in documentaries or educational programs, and in reports or cultural programs. People enjoy creativity, and TV gives us that in the work of all the people involved in creating clever film scripts, effective scenery, witty dialogues or magnificent camera shots. TV gives us the world, other cultures, other people, languages and ideas. It introduces us to knowledge. As we have seen, television offers us a wide range of valuable programs and content and serves many purposes in our daily lives.

TV not only provides many types of programs with interesting and broad content, but it also serves to fulfill our needs in terms of entertainment and knowledge. TV is an integral and vital medium today. Those tapes of crime are no different from crimes without computers. The computer is only a tool that a criminal uses to commit a crime. There are no precise, reliable statistics on the amount of computer crime and the economic loss to victims, Because many of these computer crimes are apparently not detected by the victims.

Many of these crimes are never reported to authorities, partly Because the losses are often difficult to calculate. Nevertheless, there is a consensus among both law enforcement personnel and computer scientists who specialize in security that both the number of computer crime incidents and the sophistication of computer criminals are increasing rapidly. Estimates are that computer crime costs victims at least five billion dollars each year in the USA, and the true value of such crimes might be significantly higher. In computer security, there is a new word: "information warfare. These are in contrast to merely using computer equipment as a tool to commit old crimes. Unauthorized use of computers generally takes the following forms: Unauthorized viewing of computer files, changing data, deleting data, and denying service to authorized users.

Most unauthorized use is accomplished by a person who uses a modem to access a remote computer from his house. In this way, the computer criminal is acting analogously to a thief. To successfully use a remote computer, any user must have both a valid user name and valid password. The criminals who change or delete data, who gobble large amounts of computer resources and who also might use other people's data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, and other personal information have a more sinister motive and are capable of doing immense damage. Everyone has heard the words "computer virus", but few know a precise definition.

The general term is "rogue program" or "malicious program", which is divided into the following types: file-destroying, self — replicating programs, and data congesting. All of them can delete and destroy important data. Not requiring a professional programmer, most malicious programs are made by a person or a small group. Because nowadays people rely very much on the Internet, they are more likely to be affected by a virus. The last type of computer crime is harassment.

In general, a harasser intends to cause emotional distress and has no legitimate purpose to his communications. Harassment can be as simple as continuing to send e-mail to someone who has said they want no further contact with the sender. Harassment may also include threats, sexual remarks, or pejorative labels. A particularly disturbing form of harassment is sending a forged e-mail that appears to be from the victim and contains racist remarks or other embarrassing text which will tarnish the reputation of the victim. The United States alone has enough missiles to destroy the Earth a few times over. Americans, then, should not waste their money on taxes for building more weapons!

There are other issues America must be concerned with. Why not stop the building of weapons and use the money for other needed causes? Today, over forty percent of America's national budget is used for our already large nuclear arsenal, but less than one percent is allocated for the homeless and other vital causes. In my opinion, the money could be used for helping the homeless, working towards a drug-free America, and easing the trade deficit. The money could be put to use to ease housing costs, and making housing affordable for homeless people. More houses could be built and old ones renovated or replaced.

Old boarded-up buildings could be torn down and new apartments would take their place. Thus, building more houses lowers the costs to buy a house which, in turn, allows more people to move off the streets. If homes cannot be built, existing shelters could use food and medical aid. Shelters for the homeless are in bad shape and need the extra money to clean up the area. Many people talk about a drug-free America, including George Bush. Although he wants drug trafficking to stop, he does not allocate enough funds to accomplish the task.

When production of useless weapons is stopped, the new income can be use to increase the police force. More police stations, officers, and detectives are needed now. Many investigations at this moment are slowed Because of the lack of manpower. Many people do not feel safe in their homes Because local police forces are understaffed. All of this would change if we stop the Cold War. People could walk on the streets at night, drug lords would be behind bars, and drugs would be eradicated from the country if nuclear weapons were stopped. The money would be used to set up addiction centers where many addicts can stop their use of drugs. More patrols could be set up along the border, stopping drugs before they enter this country which, in turn, would keep them off the streets and away from America's youth.

Likewise, the trade deficit needs money to reverse its upward climb. Other countries are buying up American companies, and literally America itself. We owe countries billions of dollars which we can never pay off at the rate we are going. The American dollar is falling below other countries' currencies. Our country needs extra money to pay debts and to renew trust with other countries. Once trust is renewed, we can again emerge as a leading superpower.

Hence, weapons are now gathering dust in bunkers waiting for a war that will never come. Money must be put to use for the homeless, to end the drug problem, and to lessen the trade deficit. We, as a country, should worry about other problems besides the war. Let's make America that clean, drug-free place that has kept Americans dreaming for many years. In my opinion, although subjects such as Art and Music are important, English and Math are the most fundamental part of our education.

In the first place, when you know how to read, write and do simple calculations, you have the tools required in order to deal with everyday matters. For example, being able to read and write can help you to communicate and express yourself clearly. Moreover, you need basic math for such daily chores as doing your shopping, paying your bills and managing your money. Furthermore, it is essential to have a good knowledge of English and Math in order to find even the simplest job.

Reading, writing and mathematical skills are the minimum requirements that most employers demand. On the other hand, it can be argued that Art and Music are just as significant as English and Math. For instance, learning how to draw or play an instrument can introduce a child to a whole new world. In addition to this, subjects such as Art and Music can provide children with a well-rounded education rather than just basic skills. All things considered, though, it seems to me that English and Math are vital subjects. Without learning to read, write or do arithmetic, people may have difficulties coping with even the simplest tasks in daily life.

Evans, Virginia. Successful Writing Upp. Since the peer pressure was growing, I decided to go to the gym. After that I could really understand people when they said exercise really helps a person to get organized and keeps you healthy, both physically and mentally. To begin with, when you are a lazy person, it is difficult to take the First step, but it is all a matter of committing yourself to something that will provide you a lot of positive feedback.

Once you start doing exercise and observing positive results, you actually enjoy it. It takes a lot of effort and strong will, but it's worth it. The principal thing to do is to participate in an activity you like. As a result of this, you will no longer be a stressed-out person without time to do all your activities. Second, it is obvious that once you exercise you will be in better condition. You will be physically healthier. It is probable that you will lose weight and your muscles will get stronger and stronger. When your body feels well and full of energy, it will respond immediately to any action you want to do.

Furthermore, any activity will be done in high spirits. The third reason why exercising is good is that it affects you positively in a psychological way. Doing exercise helps you to set specific goals which, along with a strong will, can be achieved. When you do that, you are aware of your abilities, you accept your weaknesses, and your self-esteem goes up. Any sport distracts you Because it helps you to not think about school, friends, problems, and other things. Thus, it brings you time to think about yourself and no one else.

It also helps you keep your mind busy and avoid dangerous habits. As a result of my experiences, I can say that doing exercise is very important to any person of any age. Once you do a sports activity that you like, you get organized; therefore, you start doing things the right way and get enormous benefits which make you feel good as a whole human being. You start living your life happily. In general, knowledge can be divided into two types: natural knowledge and social knowledge.

Science and math are the most important component of former, while art and literature are essential parts of the latter. In my opinion, both of these are very important to any individual. I will explain my reasons in this essay. We know that the world consists not only of things studied by science and math, such as stars and flowers, but that it also consists of beautiful and attractive things such as poems and paintings, which are studied by art and literature. Lack of knowledge will lead to an incomplete view of the world. Secondly, subjects like art and literature are helpful for the development of subjects like science and math. There are some rules that, given both types of subjects, the master of one subject may be beneficial to the development of another subject.

It is because of this that many great people are great artists as well as scientists. It is known that Einstein played the violin well, while he is also acknowledged as a great physicist. Some people believe that grasping both types of knowledge is essential for anyone wishing to be successful in the new millennium. Of course, the study of science and math is very important. It is the study of them that produces our modern society. However, an additional master of art and literature will make our life more colorful, and even more successful. It is well-known Because its population comes from all over the world.

I believe that recent immigrants should learn English in order to live in this country. She does not speak English. Fortunately, her sister arrived and called the ambulance. The doctor told her sister that if she had not arrived at the hospital on time, Anita could have died. A pill had gotten stuck in her throat. Immigrants should learn English to speak in public, but they should also keep using their native languages at home. It is very important to communicate with our relatives and family in general. For example, Florence, my co- worker, speaks English only.

They grow up with a way of living and it is difficult to change it Because they are in another country. They have the right to keep their culture and values. In this way, we can transmit it to our future generation. After all, the first Amendment of the Constitution of this country gives us the right. It is freedom of religion, culture and speech. They have the right to keep it and transmit it to their future generations.

For many people, a cat is their best friend. Despite what dog lovers may believe, cats make excellent house pets. In the First place, people enjoy the companionship of cats. Many cats are affectionate. They will snuggle up and ask to be petted, or scratched under the chin. Who can resist a purring cat? If they're not feeling affectionate, cats are generally quite playful. They love to chase balls and feathers, or just about anything dangling from a string. They especially enjoy playing when their owners are participating in the game. Contrary to popular opinion, cats can be trained. Using rewards and punishments, just like with a dog, a cat can be trained to avoid unwanted behavior or perform tricks.

Cats will even fetch! In the Second place, cats are civilized members of the household. Unlike dogs, cats do not bark or make other loud noises. Most cats don't even meow very often. They generally lead a quiet existence. Cats also don't often have "accidents. Even stray cats usually understand the concept when shown the box and will use it regularly. Cats do have claws, and owners must make provision for this. A tall scratching post in a favorite cat area of the house will often keep the cat content to leave the furniture alone. As a last resort, of course, cats can be declawed. Lastly, one of the most attractive features of cats as house pets is their ease of care. Cats do not have to be walked. They get plenty of exercise in the house as they play, and they do their business in the litter box.

Cleaning a litter box is a quick, painless procedure. Cats also take care of their own grooming. Bathing a cat is almost never necessary Because under ordinary circumstances cats clean themselves. Cats are more particular about personal cleanliness than people are. In addition, cats can be left home alone for a few hours without fear. Unlike some pets, most cats will not destroy the furnishings when left alone. They are content to go about their usual activities until their owners return. Cats are low maintenance, civilized companions. People who have small living quarters or less time for pet care should appreciate these characteristics of cats.

However, many people who have plenty of space and time still opt to have a cat Because they love the cat personality. In many ways, cats are the ideal house pet. It's certainly the most significant event in my life. I came to study at university in America Because the Japanese university I went to was disappointing and did not give me any benefits. It was also boring. Most Japanese university students study hard before entering a university, but at the university they hardly study. Instead of studying, they spend a lot of time playing and drinking. Therefore, there are some advantages why I came to America. The first advantage of studying at an American university is to get global ideas.

If I live only in Japan, my sight will be limited. To communicate with Americans or many foreigners will be very helpful for me to get global ideas. At school, I can talk with many foreign students, and I learned different ways of thinking and differences of culture. Now I live in an apartment with a French student named Alex. I am living comfortably and I can learn many things from him. For example, sometimes he cooks French food for me, and teaches me the French language.

He can speak Japanese a little, and sometimes I teach him Japanese. Learning a foreign language is also learning a foreign culture, so learning each language is good for us. And now, we have a good relationship. Also, to experience many things in America will be good for me. Another benefit of studying in America is that I have a chance to visit many different places. During the three months since I've arrived, on weekends I went to many places and events such as Los Angeles, baseball games, the beach, fireworks and so on. Especially the atmosphere of the baseball game was very different. The audience was very enthused, and they cheered hard, so I felt unification. It was very fun. My goals are to speak English well and graduate from a university in America.

Also, I want to get global ideas. While a strong argument can be made in favor of this idea, making such an argument would imply that reading and writing were somehow less important in the past. While there is a grain of truth to the argument that literacy was not fundamental to the daily existence of most people in the pre-Industrial Revolution period, rationalizing such a lack of need for education in such a way is the first step to withholding education from certain groups, a great social crime that has led to the disempowerment of disadvantaged groups all over the world throughout history.

However, if we can keep in mind that education is a basic human right, then we can discuss the strengths of the proposition that literacy is more important now than it has ever been before. It is true that in the past the majority of people all over the world made their livelihood from agricultural activities and that the vast majority of these activities required few or no literacy skills. In some senses, we could argue that literacy skills were less important in the agricultural age than they are now, but to do so would be to forget that literacy also reflects an active mind and that people have always needed to engage in activities of the mind.

For example, even though a farmer might have labored all day in her corn field, she may enjoy reading the latest Jane Austen novel when arrived at home. We can see in this example that, while literacy was not directly related to this laborer's livelihood, literacy was important to her quality of life. However, we could make a good argument that literacy is more important now than it was in the past. As we all know, the world is experiencing a revolution that may turn out to be more important than the Industrial Revolution.

We are now entering the Information Age, an age in which information and knowledge have more value than the ability to build machines, create "stuff," grow crops, or even mine precious metals and produce gemstones. Nowadays, accurate information may be worth more than the most expensive Rolls-Royce or the biggest diamond. A perfect example of this increasing dominance is the explosive rise in the popularity of the Internet. The Internet offers the world countless bytes of information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and days a year.

Companies all over the world, but principally in the United States, are rushing to stake their claim in cyberspace, and stiff competition among companies has resulted. In order to gain dominance, these companies must have the best-skilled workers, an advanced understanding of computer systems, and good intuition about what will happen in the future. All of these abilities to compete in the global marketplace stem directly from literacy skills, and those without these skills will be stuck in the service, agricultural, and heavy industry fields.

In short, we can see that people in the past who were lacking in literacy skills essentially had more company than those lacking these skills have today and could still earn their livelihood. Further, we could argue that Because of the nature of the global marketplace and Because of the emergence of the Information Age, we could make the argument that literacy is fundamental to professional success nowadays. Literacy should be considered a basic human right in a literate society. People across the world may have a different opinion about whether technology has had a positive or negative effect on society.

There are many reasons backing up this statement such as improvements in medicine, the creation of the motorized vehicle, ways for students to do their work, and farming. People might First off think that technology has had a bad effect on society. There are good reasons to think this. Back before the revolutions of science and agriculture, time was not a main concern. People did their day-to-day things. They went to work, came home, ate dinner, and went to bed. There were very few things that happened in between those events.

They did not have to worry about the time and whether they were going to be late for something. They did not worry about getting something done Because there would not be enough daylight. Since we have had this huge increase in technology, time has become a huge factor. Our world now moves so much faster. Clocks are now a bigger concern Because we need to know what time it is in order to get this done or that done. Pollution would be another good argument for why technology has a negative impact on society. There never used to be concerns for the ozone layer.

We did not have millions of people driving around in their cars and big factories producing lots of bad chemicals. Today, we have to wonder if our earth will last another hundred years Because of the pollution that we now produce as an effect of technology. One the other hand, technology has done great things for us today. What I am doing right now could not be done fifty years ago. If we wanted to write anything, it had to be in hand writing. Now we have these fancy computers that do all the work for us. But they do more than just write for us. They connect us with people all across the world. Technology lets us travel with our cars, which is one of the biggest advances in technology. Before the invention of the car, people had to travel from place to place by horse, horse and buggy, or on foot.

Now, not only can we travel in our cars, trucks, or whatever we drive, we can look at the world on the Internet. Vehicles let us drive from place to place while we just sit in the car steer, give the gas, and break. Technology has allowed us to make the freeways that you and I drive on every day. Although there are barrels, slow drivers, and exits we have to dodge, motorized vehicles allow us to travel anywhere faster than we could in the past. Farming has changed drastically. Before the agricultural revolution, men had to plow the fields using donkeys and walking many miles a day. Now we have tractors and combines that do the work for us.

Tractors and combines allow farmers to spend less time in the fields Because they can ride in the cab and get the work done in less time. Farmers can work on more fields, which means they can cultivate more fields, create more crops, and earn more money for their families. Medical advances are one of the biggest advances in technology. Twenty years ago, a man that had a liver problem might not have lived Because hospitals did not know how to treat his disease.

Since the beginning of medical treatments, every year there is a new treatment or they have discovered an antidote for a disease or virus. I bet that in the next twenty years there will be a cure for AIDS. It is only a matter of time. They have found a cure for most of the past diseases and viruses, so this is just the next big discovery. The bottom line is that we do not even realize how much of an impact technology has on our lives. We do things that people twenty, forty, or one hundred years ago would not have ever dreamed of doing, and we do not even know it.

We take for granted everything we do. Next time you are with your grandmother, or someone of an older generation, ask them how it was when he or she was a teenager. Even you can tell that things have changed dramatically. If we did not have these advances, our world would not grow. We would still be wearing our two outfits of clothes five days a week, and our one good outfit on Sunday. Technology is the food that feeds our world and us and makes us grow, which is why technology has had greater advantages than disadvantages. Television is undoubtedly one of the most powerful means of communication in the history of humankind. It rivals all other forms of communication, such as the Internet, the telephone, movies, and, of course, simple, low-tech speech.

Television, with its wide availability and rich media with images and sound, is difficult to ignore and even seductive in its appeal. Television is as much a part of our lives as are our meals, work, or school. Studies consistently show that the average American child spends almost as much time watching television as she does in school. Furthermore, Because television is so rich in its media, it often requires our full attention and it is more attractive to us than our daily lives are. Naturally, the more time one spends watching television, the less time she has with her family and friends. Thus, we can clearly see why some have claimed that television is harmful for communication among family and friends.

However, I believe that, while television has been somewhat harmful in its effects, it has hardly "destroyed" communication among family and friends for most people, although for some, this may be true. Most people much prefer spending time with their families and friends to spending time watching television. Television is of course an important part of many people's lives, but most people would gladly choose family and friends over television if they were given the choice. Furthermore, most educated people are aware of the deleterious effects of too much television and either avoid spending excessive time watching television, or actually do not enjoy it.

I, for example, after a long day at work, would much rather spend time talking with my wife and playing with my children than I would watching some unrealistic portrayal of life on television. For me and my family, our time together is precious and beautiful, and could never be replaced or hurt by television. Furthermore, the effect of television is simply not so great that it could be said to have "destroyed" communication among family and friends. Granted communication among family and friends in industrialized countries has decreased in recent years, so it might be tempting to blame this problem on television since its rise roughly coincided with the decrease in time we spend with our families.

However, I believe this situation is more likely due to increased pressures relating to work, school, and the economy. In my case, for example, I find that my pressures from work are so great that I must often sacrifice time at home so that I can meet the challenges of running my own business. Many of my friends are in similar situations--my best friend, For example, has just finished law school, which took about sixty hours a week of his time. In other words, people nowadays have very little time for anything, but television is not the cause--it is an increased desire to succeed. In some situations, However, television has surely contributed to a decrease in communication among family members.

In my childhood in the countryside, I often saw parents and children watching television for hours on end, rarely speaking with one another. It seemed for them that television was a way to escape from their sad, miserable existence. However, even in this case, I would say that television merely contributed to the bad situation, but did not cause it. If television did not exist, surely these people would have found other escapes, For example alcohol or gambling. In other words, people always find a way to do what they want to do. In short, I do not believe that television has destroyed or even harmed interpersonal communication among most people.

Most people realize that television is merely a temporary diversion and do not use it to replace interpersonal communication. I believe that the damage attributed to television is greatly exaggerated and that such damage is most likely attributable to other more powerful social factors. Then why do you continue smoking? A few of these reasons are that smoking affects your health, you spend a lot of money on cigarettes, and when you smoke you are not respecting people around you. If you smoke, your physical condition will be negatively affected, so it will be very difficult for you to succeed in sports.

In addition, smoking produces lethal diseases like cancer and reduces the length and quality of your life. Does it count? Please don't ask me to summarize it or outline it or heaven forbid! But if I didn't really read it, why did I like it so much? And why can't I stop thinking about it? Maybe what I did when I read Antifragile was antireading. Maybe antireading is the kind of reading where you turn the pages and read the words, but understand only a smidgen of what's there, and then you think about it for weeks, and come back to the book again and again, and maybe try to reread it, and it tweaks your map about this life, even through you really didn't understand much of what you read to begin with.

Maybe antireading is the best kind of reading of all. View all 6 comments. Aug 29, James Johnson rated it did not like it. The author somehow is able to pull off sounding like an arrogant prick and simultaneously like an insecure whiner. The rare examples when the author wrote something that was true or significant do not offset the hundred of pages of unsubstantiated assertions and purely fabricated nonsense. Jan 17, Matt rated it did not like it Shelves: science , economics.

I sat on this review for a long time, because this book bothered me. I really disliked both the author and his work. The writing is punchy, blustery, privileged, and utterly without charm. Taleb barely dips his toe into each topic before asserting that he has proven another point. Antifragile is very weak on evidence. You have to worry about an author that thinks he can vocalize an argument through Tony Soprano that defeats Socrates!!! Further, he is on Al-Ghazali's side, a Spanish Muslim who I sat on this review for a long time, because this book bothered me.

Further, he is on Al-Ghazali's side, a Spanish Muslim who is the chief evil responsible for Islam falling from its tolerant golden age into its present dark age. Big time warning bells!!! No serious proof or consideration of counterexamples enters into a discussion of the superiority of city-states over today's political arrangements. Taleb argues that war is more prevalent today for a couple of pages and considers the argument won something Steven Pinker argues against for pages in Better Angels of our Nature.

He says that there were no dental cavities in the past; Jared Diamond says that primitive man often died because of dental issues. Taleb calls the Code of Hammurabi "more advanced" A code of laws that calls for the innocent son of a builder to be killed for the builder's shortcomings is more advanced? He argues that, in the medical world, the "iatrogenics of the last century" is a detriment, acting as if is he unaware of the vast improvements in real-world medical results vaccines, pregnancy-related care, life expectancy The quacks that Taleb loves so well have accomplished none of this.

When Taleb thinks he is making an argument he is usually making a weak excuse instead of a legitimate point. Often his arguments take the form of insults he often calls his opponents "nerds", he uses "businessmen" is a bad word, he uses negative physical characteristics to describe opponents - he likes to suggest that they are fat slobs. I would not recommend this to anyone. Don't read it. Aug 02, David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing Shelves: business , philosophy , ethics , economics , memoirs. Taleb has a very non-traditional style of writing--often conversational, historical, philosophical, and scientific--all at the same time. Taleb's basic thesis is that people and institutions are either fragile, robust, or antifragile.

A fragile person is one who thinks he can predict the future--and when things go very sour, he is sorely hurt, usually in a f I had previously read Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable ; I enjoyed it, and this book is definitely better. A fragile person is one who thinks he can predict the future--and when things go very sour, he is sorely hurt, usually in a financial way. A robust person is one who has set himself up so that he is neutral to downturn episodes. An antifragile person knows that he cannot predict the future, especially outliers and catastrophic downturns.

So, he has situated himself so that in normal times he may lose a little, but when a downturn occurs, he stands to gain--a lot. Taleb writes, In short, the fragilista medical, economic, social planning is one who makes you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects potentially severe and invisible. He writes a lot about the policy fragilista " Then, after a financial disaster they will try to rewrite history, claiming that they predicted the disaster, and tried to avert it.

Taleb is very outspoken in his opinions. When he published The Black Swan he was the recipient of many attacks. With this book, he should be the recipient of many more, stronger attacks. He is definitely against academics who do not have any "skin in the game", and comes out heavily in favor of small businesses; he believes that " Taleb is extremely critical of fragile institutions.

He considers the Office of Management and Budget to be a bunch of scam artists, who are arrogant to believe they can predict the future. Taleb is against much of the scientific basic research as practiced by academics. He uses a metaphor of academics using arcane jargon and mathematics, lecturing birds on how to fly. Then the birds actually fly, so the academics take credit for successfully teaching them, and get government grants. Of course the metaphor sounds silly, but replace "birds" with "men", and you get the picture. Taleb mentions the Yiddish saying, "If the student is smart, the teacher takes the credit. He accuses them of "cherry picking" with statistics.

Sciences that do not use statistics for proofs like physics are not so prone to this approach. It is obvious, too, that Taleb had a lot of fun writing this book. For example, he proposed a rather simple financial concept that the experts considered to be too trivial to be true. So he writes, According to the wonderful principle that one should use people's stupidity to have fun, I invited my friend Raphael Douady to collaborate in expressing this simple idea using the most opaque mathematical derivations, with incomprehensible theorems that would take half a day for a professional to understand.

Then the experts started to agree with him! Taleb is a moralist, and has lots of ethical lessons to give. For example, he writes that one of the purposes of religion is to protect us from scientism. He hates futurists like Ray Kurzweill, who he calls the "anti-me". He also detests people who greedily use invisible "optionality" to get ahead at the expense of others. I won't explain optionality here, other than to say that it is the use of asymmetry that only has an upside for oneself and no downside except perhaps for others.

He also hates journalists who help to instigate violence and wars, with no negative consequences when the outcomes are horrific. The two appendices are quite unique for a book like this. The first appendix uses graphs to portray all of the interesting concepts that he introduced throughout the book. The second appendix uses some rather technical mathematics to illustrate his ideas. At a few places in the book, especially with the philosophical topics, the writing becomes a bit tedious and sometimes strays off-topic. But overall, this is a marvelous book that is both entertaining and profound. View all 3 comments. Jun 02, Annie rated it it was ok. Antifagile points out the value of systems that gain from disorder, chaos, or volatility. For example, a fragile state is catching a disease, a neutral state is avoiding exposure to anyone infected with the disease, and antifragile state is being vaccinated where a small dosage produces immunity to the disease.

There are many examples in the book, like lack of physical exertion, walking, and jogging. The rigorous activity of jogging increases health benefits, whereas no stressors to the body m Antifagile points out the value of systems that gain from disorder, chaos, or volatility. The rigorous activity of jogging increases health benefits, whereas no stressors to the body make it fragile.

After the point is made, the rest of the book is filled with a lot ranting about others being wrong and the author being right. I stopped reading the book after halfway through. Jan 19, Mario Tomic rated it it was amazing. This is one of the most important books I've ever read, it opened my eyes to entire new mindset and gave me a new framework for understanding the world. I know some of you reading this book will find the cocky tone of the author unbearable but just keep plowing through, the ideas shared inside are based on a very powerful logic that's hard to argue against. If I had to pick the 2 big ideas of the book I would say they are: 1. Design your life around anti-fragility allow the stress of life to st This is one of the most important books I've ever read, it opened my eyes to entire new mindset and gave me a new framework for understanding the world.

Design your life around anti-fragility allow the stress of life to strengthen you rather than breaking being fragile or being robust denying change, not improving. Example: If you pick a glass jar off the floor and drop it, it will break if you drop from enough height, it's fragile. If you pick up a rubber ball off the floor and drop it, it will bounce instead of breaking, it's robust and will be unchanged. The third category most people don't know about is being anti fragile. If you jump off the floor and land again, your legs are becoming stronger. Stress with proper dosage is therefor good for the body and will improve you over time.

The world is mostly non-linear. Example: There's a height from which you can drop that glass jar and it won't break but just go a bit height than that it will break. Those 2 outcomes are entirely different. So only a small difference can have a large impact on the outcome. One thing about this book is that it's not easy to digest, it took me longer than usual to read it because of the complexity of ideas presented inside and my suggestion is don't rush it.

Think about how this applies in your life and the world around you. Bottom-line: finish whatever book you are currently reading assuming you like it and then read Antifragile next, you will not regret it. Feb 01, Janet Eshenroder rated it did not like it. I really tried to finish this e-book I might not have picked it if I had realized it was so long and would be so hard to stomach. I hate to give an opinion on any book until I've finished and given it every possible chance of redeeming itself. It is just not worth wasting the time.

The author has such a pompous view of himself that the first quarter of the book left me positively nauseated. I tried to put personal I really tried to finish this e-book I might not have picked it if I had realized it was so long and would be so hard to stomach. I tried to put personal feelings aside, giving the benefit of the doubt perhaps he was "challenging" my old mindsets , and focusing on the ideas. I read on because of so many positive reviews. For a while the book did get better. There was less of the author talking about himself as brilliant and misunderstood or resented and more about his actual ideas. There were some good ideas, though I found little that has not been put forth before, using other terms of definition. Perhaps some of these concepts aren't common knowledge, but neither is it the first time anybody had an insight on these points.

He liked keeping most systems simple and unregulated. No big business or big government. He usually railed on government regulations, though he believed in "staunch intervention in some areas, such as ecology or to limit the economic distortions and moral hazards caused by large corporations. Anticipate the worst and build in redundant or independent systems,quit relying on past history and "tweaking" the established system if you want true safety in a changing and unpredictable world. No problem with many of his points, but they are not radically new. I find it annoying that the author makes up his own words to identify concepts already adequately defined elsewhere. Reading this book was like being stuck on vacation with a know-it-all conspiracy theorist who never lets up.

The nicest way another reviewer put it was that he was like Crazy Uncle Fred who's decided he sees the answer to the big problem but people in general are too stupid to see and acknowledge true genius when they meet it in person. There you are, stuck at the table, unable to politely slip away. The author rambles, he rants, he sees no reason to let an editor review his work it needed a good editor. There are good ideas that could have been covered using far less "ink. View 1 comment. Apr 27, Mark Galassi rated it did not like it. I could not point to a worse book that I have read.

The author is disorganized and throws a bunch of random factoids together with an unconvincing unifying theme. The lack of clarity in thinking is reminiscent of the kind of pseudo-intellectual numerology or fact-correlating that you find in works of fiction, but it is made even worse by the fact that the author seems to have a long list of axes to grind, and fills the book with petty name calling. Why is he so obsessed with the "soviet-harvard c I could not point to a worse book that I have read.

Why is he so obsessed with the "soviet-harvard complex"? I have the impression that good reviews of this book must come from people who felt they were supposed to "get it", but I think there is nothing to "get" in the book, starting from the introduction of a new word "antifragile", an awkward word to describe as a single phenomenon something that remains unconvincing. As a saving grace: the author clearly has a vast culture, and a few factoids were cute when taken individually, like his pointing out that Homer used similes to describe the color of the sea because Greek at his time did not have a word for "blue". Still, I would prefer to slog through a bulleted list of factoids than to read them in his "I'm grinding an axe" framework.

Reading random Wikipedia pages would be a better use of time. But I did read Antifragile. All of it, including the appendix. Oh, god, where to begin? Reading between the lines rather easy because he is disarmingly frank about his emotions and reactions Mr Taleb was clearly outraged and humiliated by a rejection from a prestigious Ivy-League university, probably Harvard , as the book drips with contempt for academics in general, and the economic fraternity in particular. With good reason perhaps — economics is not called The Dismal Science for nothing. Despite that, he is now an international celebrity. Yes, I read the whole thing because I still believe there are some grains of truth here.

In fact, I have a lot of sympathy with many of his views — the financial sector where previously he worked as a derivatives trader IS a self-serving, bombastic, bloated time bomb of greed. That seems to have been a shock to the young Taleb. He was a naive graduate in the mathematical theory of Derivatives trading I think when he first discovered that colossal fortunes were being made by the pit traders who knew nothing about theory or even the products they were trading. His friend Fat Tony, who appears throughout the book, was one of those traders. From this initial shock he formulated the idea that the theories themselves were crap, but there must be something systematic you could extract from the underlying variances ie, uncertainties.

Got that? No, nor did I. Oh, god, the graphs — they could be anything. But he went on to apply his grand idea to everything else. That takes about, oh, the first ten pages. The rest is basically one long and repetitive rant against the opposing camp. But, though long and rambling, it is not actually a dull book. For in many places it is unintentionally hilarious. I rolled my eyes many times, and J.

This was to illustrate the concept that you should be heavily invested in safety but have the audacity to gamble on a long shot that could make you fabulously rich. Provided you did not care about being rich. At least I think that was the message. He is also not a mean person. In fact, he does have his heart in the right place as far as recognizing that certain people need a helping hand in life. But the boundary between legitimate help and smothering control is razor-thin and never defined, and woe betide you if you cross it, you fragilista!

Soccer moms?? Taleb loves bathetic lists and invented words like this. I am not sure if they are supposed to be an attempt at humour, but they tend to reveal more about Mr T than anything else. There is a delightful table of various grand human enterprises — science, medicine, education, literature, town planning and so on — and the ills that result from excessive control by the fragilista. These are Grandmothers from the Old Country, not those who were Soccer Moms some 20 years ago, obviously! So does Fat Tony who at one point has a verbal sparring match with Socrates. There are also rather too many comparisons showing the Mafia in an uncomfortably favourable light. One such passage contrasts the neurotic persona typical fragilista with one who is quietly confident and in control: the antifragile example he uses is a Mafia thug who has just eliminated some 18 of his opponents.

OK, joking aside, it is very easy to mock this bloated book. But the message in AF is profoundly disturbing. As Taleb points out, our complex interconnected society is very definitely fragile, while what he is advocating is only an individual opportunistic response. But it was just this unregulated trading in products that were either not understood by his venerated Fat Tony or intentionally misrepresented by Goldman-Sachs that was the direct cause of the recent financial chaos and collapse. And Taleb himself recognizes that the financial institutions that he loathes so much were, by his definition, superbly antifragile in the sense that they were handsomely bailed out by the suckers — taxpayers like Mr T.

So in short, this book would be a rather sick prescription for the future if it actually made any sense, and it is a bit depressing that so many seem to have been taken in by Antifragile. Jul 05, Thomas rated it did not like it Shelves: not-worth-finishing , worst-ofs. A truly dreadful text. The author is an extremely poor writer, both in command of language see "non-sissy risk" and in general structure. He is also rather egomaniacal. The claims made are either commonsensical see other reviews or simply wrong. Take the argument that the consolidation of the banking sector caused the recent financial crisis. The Canadian and Australian banking sectors are extremely concentrated in a handful of firms, yet both countries did not endure systemic banking crises A truly dreadful text.

The Canadian and Australian banking sectors are extremely concentrated in a handful of firms, yet both countries did not endure systemic banking crises and haven't for quite some time. Avoid this book at all costs. Jan 22, Herve rated it it was amazing. His views include tensions between the individual and the groups, how distributed systems are more robust than centralized ones, how small unites are less fragile than big ones. This does not mean Taleb is against orgamizations, governments or laws as too little intervention induces totally messy situations.

It is about putting the cursor at the right level. Switzerland represents for Taleb a good illustration of good state organizations with little central government, a lot of local responsibility. He has similar analogies for the work place, where he explains that an independent worker, who knows well his market, is less fragile to crises than big corporations and their employees. One way to make systems less fragile is to put some noise, some randomness which will stabilize them.

This is well-known in science and also in social science. Just remember Athens was randomly nominating some of its leaders to avoid excess! Now let me quote the author. First Taleb is, as usual, unfair but maybe less than in the Black Swan. I grew to find people greedy for credentials nauseating, repulsive, and untrustworthy. In politics for example. But when money is available, maybe rivalry counts less than where there is little.

It contradicts modern methods and ideas of innovation and progress on many levels, as we tend to think that innovation comes from bureaucratic funding, through central planning, or by putting people through a Harvard Business School class by one Highly Decorated Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship who never innovated anything or hiring a consultant who never innovated anything. This is a fallacy — note for now the disproportionate contribution of uneducated technicians and entrepreneurs to various technological leaps, from the Industrial Revolution to the emergence of Silicon Valley, and you will see what I mean.

In a system, the sacrifices of some units — fragile units, that is, or people — are often necessary for the well-being of other units or the whole. So it is not only about the uncertainty of new markets, but about uncertainty above all. Mathematics of convexity I have to admit Taleb is not easy to read. Not because it is complex sometimes his ideas are pure common sense , but because it is dense with different even if consistent ideas. The book is divided in 25 chapters, but also in 7 books. In fact, Taleb insists on it, he might have written 7 different books! Even his mathematics is simple. His definition of convexity is a little strange though I found it interested I teach convex optimization, and you might not know, it was the topic of my PhD!

Jensen inequality is interesting [Pages , — Jensen was an amateur mathematician! Again individual concave, we die vs. So risk taking is good for collectivity if with insurance mechanisms. One needs a parameter, called standard deviation, but uncertainty about standard deviation has the effect of making the small probabilities rise. Smaller and smaller probabilities require more precision in computation. Their respective industries improve from failure to failure. Natural and nature-like systems want some overconfidence on the part of the individual economic agents, i. Now, by disrupting the model, as we will see, with bailouts, governments typically favor a certain class of firms that are large enough to require being saved in order to avoid contagion to other businesses.

This is the opposite of healthy risk taking; it is transferring fragility from the collective to the unfit. I detest the notion of improvement thanks to harm to others. As a humanist, I stand against the antifragility of systems at the expense of individuals, for if you follow the reasoning, this makes us humans individually irrelevant. Their cohort is rarely at risk. My dream — the solution — is that we would have a National Entrepreneur Day, with the following message: Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty.

You are the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you. Because it is composed of a lot of independent and competing small units that do not individually threaten the system and make it jump from one state to another. Randomness is distributed rather than concentrated. Medical error still currently kills between three times as accepted by doctors and ten times as many people as car accidents in the United States, it is generally accepted that harm from doctors — not including risks from hospitals germs — accounts for more deaths than any single cancer.

An agency problem is present with the stockbroker and medical doctor whose ultimate interest is their own checking account, not your financial and medical health. The most depressing part of the Greenspan story is that the fellow was a libertarian and seemingly convinced of the idea of leaving systems to their own devices; people can fool themselves endlessly. We need to avoid being blinded to the natural antifragility of systems, their ability to take care of themselves and fight our tendency to harm and fragilize them by not giving them a chance to do so. The democratic side of the US spectrum favors hyper-intervention, unconditional regulation and large government, while the Republican side loves large corporations, unconditional deregulation and militarism, both are the same to me here.

Let me simplify my take on intervention. To me it is mostly about having a systematic protocol to determine when to intervene and when to leave systems alone. And we may need to intervene to control the iatrogenics of modernity — particularly the large-scale harm to the environment and the concentration of potential though not yet manifested damage, the kind of thing we only notice when it is too late. The ideas advanced here are not political, but risk-management based. The more data you get, the less you know.

So just as Stoicism is the domestication, not the elimination, of emotions, so is the barbell a domestication, not the elimination, of uncertainty. In biological systems, the equivalent of marrying an accountant and having an occasional fling with a rock star; for a writer, getting a stable sinecure and writing without the pressures of the market. Even trial and error are a form of barbell.

In modern Japan, by contrast, shame comes, with failure, which causes people to hide risks under the rug, financial or nuclear. Nature understands optionality effects better than humans. He claims the jet engine, financial derivatives, architecture, medicine were first developed by practitioners and then theorized by scientists, not invented or discovered by them. Tinkering vs. By some vicious turn of events, governments have gotten huge payoffs from research, but not as intended — just consider the Internet. It is just that functionaries are too teleological in the way they look for things and so are large corporations.

Most large companies, such as Big Pharma, are their own enemies. Consider blue sky research, whereby grants and funding are given to people, not projects, and spread in small amounts across many researchers. Decisions are largely a matter of opinion, strengthened with who you know. The significant venture capital decisions were made without real business plans. So if there was any analysis, it had to be of a backup, confirmatory nature. Visibly the money should go to the tinkerers, the aggressive tinkerers who you trust will milk the option.

Make sure you are barbelled, whatever that means in your business. There Is no empirical evidence to support the statement that organized research in the sense it is currently marketed leads to great things promised by universities. For the antifragile, shocks bring more benefits equivalently, less harm as their intensity increases up to a point. We may just say something about what it is not. Michelangelo was asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, particularly how he carved the statue of David. One cannot really tell if a successful person has skills, or if a person with skills will succeed — but we can pretty much predict the negative, that a person totally devoid of skills will eventually fail.

We know a lot more what is wrong than what is right. Negative knowledge is more robust to error than positive knowledge. I should have said there we many about what not to do! It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. Innovation is saying no to 1, things. First extreme effects: there are domains in which the rare event good or bad plays a disproportionate share and we tend to be blind to it. Just worry about Black Swan exposures and life is easy. There may not be an easily identifiable cause for a large share of the problems, but often there is an easy solution, sometimes with the naked eye rather than the use of the complicated analyses.

Yet people want more data to solve problems. Nov 18, Douglas Wilson rated it it was amazing Shelves: culture-studies. I started it, and was enjoying it, but stalled out for some reason. It was dark. They were big. His book found itself in my lamentably large and scattered collection of partly read books. But somewhere in my mind was the thought of finishing it, which I just did a short time ago. Really glad I did. Some might want to dismiss his central thesis as a glib attempt to prove that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Taleb knows this, but so did your grandmother. The real point of the book has to do with what toughness actually looks like, how it behaves, how it configures itself before the going gets tough—in short, how does it anticipate the inevitable tough times? Institutions, corporations, management systems, biological organisms can be fragile, robust, or antifragile. According to Taleb, fragile systems require predictability.

They want the environment to be placid, and they want as much protection as possible from external stressors. Robust systems do okay when they are in trouble; they are resilient. But antifragile systems are complicated, and they positively thrive in the midst of chaos. Chaos is the soil in which they grow and flourish. In peaceful times, a fragile system can give out the appearance of stability, but this is just a mask for the fragility. And because it is easy to be foolish, many people strive for just that appearance.

Not many people know that the house built on sand had a five-star rating. Two historical examples of fragile systems that did not appear to be at all fragile were the Soviet Union prior to its collapse, and medieval Christendom prior to the Reformation. When subsequent events overtook them—the kind of rare but extreme happening that Taleb calls a Black Swan—their fragility was exposed. Fragile systems are cowardly, and function in a CYA mode much of the time. Because the world is filled with risk, the way that fragile systems manage this is by trying to outsource the risk. A lot of pastors could benefit from gleaning the principles found in this book. They want to build a peaceful church that is free of controversy, and so instead they build a fragile one that is entirely vulnerable to controversy.

In the name of fighting off infections, they put their immune system under a ban. The elders issue a chin-stroking statement that antibodies are the troublers of the body. In case anybody is still curious about it, the applications for the Reformed evangelical network in North America are numerous. They demand cultivation of fragility as though it were a cardinal virtue. And because this is how the world works, what they have insisted upon they have certainly gotten.

Fragility is our middle name. View 2 comments. Jan 05, Jeffrey Akiva Savett rated it liked it. In the conclusion of this book, Taleb reports that a friend of his asked him to explain his core argument while standing on one foot. Obviously an allusion to the famous story in which a gentile promises to convert if Rabbi Hillel can explain Judaism while standing on one foot, Taleb offers, "the best way to verify if you are alive is to check whether you like variations. More on why in a bit. Taleb's the In the conclusion of this book, Taleb reports that a friend of his asked him to explain his core argument while standing on one foot.

Taleb's thesis is that modernity is the attempt of human beings to turn the random into the predictable and stable, and that this attempt ironically causes MORE randomness and disorder. This seems very compelling. Given my personal medical history as a Crohn's sufferer who has undergone five surgeries, the prospect that all of this suffering is actually making me STRONGER and more resilient rather than broken and weaker is inspiring. Taleb doesn't pretend that this theory is novel; indeed, much of his evidence is derived from ancient and classical wisdom and cultures. He notes that the maxim "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," isn't NEW, just that it's almost completely ignored by policy makers, economists, parents who try to protect their children from all harm, and his previous colleagues in risk management positions.

It's clear that he has an axe to grind with Ivy League educated leaders and policy makers. In constantly trying to position himself as an Everyman speaking in the voice "Fat Tony" from Brooklyn, Taleb fails at every turn to NOT sound like an arrogant, long winded, elitist. Anyone whose short bio on the back flap describes him as "a flaneur meditating in cafes," is going to have trouble connecting with the reader. Don't be ashamed, I had to look up "flaneur" as well. Unlike her, I find his personal "ass-holier-than-thou-ness" inseparable from his argument. So Taleb is QUITE in love with the sound of his own voice and his verbosity, intentionally obscure chapter titles, and inability to maintain a straightforward argument free of bombast is the reason I found it impossible to read this book from cover to cover.

Perhaps the problem is as simple as this: Taleb's central thesis about antifragility is written on the cover. It's interesting. It's a compelling idea. And really, Taleb could have devoted 35 concentrated pages advising us how to better embrace random events and stressors Black Swans he calls them in his previous book at work, in raising our children, and with regard to our own health. That would have been a five star endeavor and could have appeared as a lengthy New Yorker feature. But the room that a book length work gives Taleb to stretch out his legs is to his detriment. He is in dire need of editor unafraid to be called "too stupid to understand" to rein in his oversized ego and overwrought style.

I am left interested and disappointed. Not a pleasant feeling after devoting so much time and concentration following Taleb's circuitous verbal "flaneur-ing. Aug 11, Will rated it did not like it.

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