Handle Without Care
Handle Without Care
In today’s episode, we unpack a bit of our favourite thinker’s core work. We’ve mentioned Nassim Nicholas Taleb in previous episodes, but today we take a deep dive into the concepts that have shaped both of our lives and businesses and how we currently think about Regenerative Design. We explore Black Swans, Antifragility, and the Bed of Procrustes–interrelated tenets which have helped move us beyond being resilient designers and thinkers, and into the space of thriving under unpredictable and unprecedented conditions.
Support this Work
If you like this work and want to see it continue you can support via Paypal or Patreon.Selected Links From This Episode
- Timothy Ferriss Speed Reading Method
- Mastery by Robert Greene
- 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green
- Exponential Organizations video
- Audible
- The Art of Manliness Blog re: Antifragile
- Antifragile Property series part 1
- Antifragile Property Series part 2
- Flanuer definition
- The Khan Academy
- Udemy
- Harvard’s Open Learning Initiative
- Gaussien AKA Normal distribution
- Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
- The Big Short film
- Spartan Up book by Joe De Sena
- The Signal in the Noise by Nick Silver
- Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Glial cells
- Deadlift
- Calgary floods
- Hurricane Katrina
- Option trading
- Ten Principles for a Black Swan-proof World article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Show Notes
- Be prepared: Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s work is dense [2:20]
- Sidebox: Javan’s Reading Hack [3:45]
- Increase speed in reading by 1.25x or more [5:20]
- Audible plus hard copy reading [7:47]
- Taleb and Black Swans [9:11]
- Javan’s other reading hack: reading summaries [9:52]
- The Bed of Procrustes [10:43]
- Taleb’s mentality: we stretch to fit instead of talking about differences [12:10]
- Schoolkids and Procrustian Beds [13:30]
- Bespoken Education [15:09]
- The Black Swan [16:55]
- Bell curves and Extremistan [17:39]
- Fukushima as a Black Swan [20:00]
- Why Taleb chose the Black Swan analogy [21:30]
- The World is Indeed Random: the Concept of Induction [24:20]
- Confirmation Bias [26:30]
- Mediocristan vs Extremistan [27:38]
- Black Swans can be positive or negative [30:30]
- Black Swans vs Turkeys [31:20]
- The downside of upside, or the upside of downside [34:20]
- Asymmetry in investments [35:05]
- The Three Camps of Existing Antifragile [38:01]
- The Example of Buying Gold [42:00]
- What actively improves your life and offsets risk? [44:00]
- Antifragile: things that benefit from volatility [46:55]
- Using a process that adds benefit or value to a product [49:42]
- Action points of Black Swans [53:06]
- Life as a series of tiny experiments [57:47]
- Invest in Relationships [1:00:57]
- Episode regarding Black Swans and Business? [1:03:27]
- This podcast is a tiny experiment [1:04:48]
- Survive and Thrive When Shit Happens [1:06:50]
- Bumper Stickers for Black Swans #nassimophiles [1:08:47]
People
Nassim Nicholas Taleb — Author, The Black Swan
Tim Ferriss — Author, Entrepreneur, podcaster The Tim Ferriss Show
Robert Greene — Author, The 48 Laws of Power
Salim Ismail — Author, Exponential Organizations
David Rock — Author, Your Brain at Work
William Gibson — Author, Neuromancer
Steven Pinker — Author, How the Mind Works
Jocko Williink — Author, podcaster Jocko Podcast,Retired Navy Seal
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