Antifragile II: too many Greeks spoil the party

More on the Antifragile and its limits

Let’s unpack the concept of antifragile in a little more depth so that we can use it to observe the world around us. In my first piece, I included a sketch that represents the antifragile as liking or enjoying ever-increasing levels of chaos or disorder.

That is slightly misleading. There are few things which enjoy unlimited levels of volatility outside of artificial financial instruments. Like your parents probably warned you, too much of a good thing is bad. While the antifragile likes disorder and co., it does not like them in unlimited quantities.

Let’s revise our definition of the antifragile: the antifragile likes some chaos, some disorder, some time, some stressors. It does not like any of them in excessive measure any more than the fragile does.

Some examples might help.

In Greek mythology, Hydra is a fearsome many-headed serpent who, when one of his heads is cut off, regrows two more in the same place. Hydra likes a little bit of chaos — one overly ambitious Greek with a sword is good for Hydra because every time a head is cut off, two more appear and Hydra grows stronger. In this regard, Hydra is antifragile.

But too many Greeks is a bad thing (even for Hydra); it is too much disorder. The brave Heracles, with the help of his nephew Iolaus, comes up with a plan to cauterise each neck stump once the head is cut off. Thus Hydra, while antifragile to, and benefitting from the disorder posed by one Greek, cannot deal with the chaos and stress posed by many Greeks and must break.

As a second example, consider your body. Your bones will not benefit from lying in bed all day — they will grow weak and brittle. Instead, they like some mild shocks, such as those gained from walking around. But too much of a shock is bad — jumping off the roof of your house is unlikely to strengthen them.They don’t get stronger when you lie in bed for months on end not using them — they need to be used to grow stronger.

One reason so many personal trainers will prefer you use dumbells (or perhaps a barbell or kettlebell) to using a machine is that your muscles are antifragile. When using a barbell or kettlebell, there is a small dose of volatility in how the weight moves, forcing you to use more muscles to stabilise the weight and yourself. This small dose of random movement is good, but too much is bad — imagine trying to perform a benchpress in an earthquake: odds are the excess movement from the barbell will be too much for you to handle and you will (as Taleb loves to say) ‘exit the gene pool.’

This is the antifragility that Kelly Clarkson (or Kanye, or Nitzche, depending on your preference) talk about: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Antifragility is constrained in a second way: not all disorder is the same.

An agent can meet the same stressor with different responses. In one sense you are antifragile to time — as you go through life gathering experiences you grow more able to deal with new happenings in the world around you. Common sense tells you that if you want a child to be able to deal with “the real world” then you should not lock them up in their bedroom all day. Instead, you need to let them socialise with other kids, fall off their bikes, and gather experiences.

But in another sense time actually fragilises you (that is, it makes you more fragile, or more prone to breaking). We know that as we approach old age that bones become more brittle, muscles atrophy faster, immune systems slow down, and hair doesn’t grow like it used to.

So the same stressor (in this case, time) can be received in different ways.

In much the same way, you could be antifragile to one type of stressor or chaos but very fragile to another. Think about your wine again. It is antifragile to (some) time and will grow more delicious, but it is not antifragile to earthquakes or toddlers.

I think that’s about enough for us to get our heads around antifragility. In the next few pieces I’ll unpack some other aspects of antifragility and suggest what they mean for you practically.