Antifragile - Dose Response

Nassim Taleb recently released a draft working paper along with a video to explain his theory behind the book Antifragile. In this posting we'll take a look at both of these items and explore in R-Project some of the Sigmoid functions he uses.

If you are a fan of the Black Swan or the sequel Antifragile, then these additional pearls of wisdom are going to be intriguing to scrutinise further. They give us insight into the model that is at the heart of the Antifragile concept. 

The Risk Clock

Some things come in cycles is a common saying I am sure we have all heard before. This seems to be even more so the case when we are presented with a complex disorder which is stubborn to stamp out. We will have moments when everything looks fine, only to be presented with a set of known preconditions over and over again that result in what we thought was under control suddenly being less so.

Are risks more seasonal than we would like to first imagine?

The Dark Side of Risk Management

Risk management can be a paradox in nature and this often leads entire communities, perhaps society at large to entertain red herring solutions for systemic threats. 

Today I can see at least three man made ills which may be killing us broadly and as a global community they are. Long term side effects may take us to a place that is far worse than where we are at present. Perhaps we should carefully rethink what we are trying to achieve because we may just find our desperate first attempt to resolve the unwanted is often not the most ideal solution.

Shutting down Libor, disbanding nuclear power and embracing a never ending program of Quantitative Easing could have dangerous outcomes which are not really understood in the long term. Let's take a look at Quantitative Easing and Libor, we can talk about nuclear power another time.