On fragility: why systems fail
In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb argues that the opposite of fragile is not, as is commonly supposed, robust or resilient. These are merely neutral conditions. The antonym of fragile doesn't seem to exist in English, hence the neologism, antifragile. If something fragile is damaged by chaos, stress and challenge and something resilient or robust is immune, then something possessing antifragility is enhanced. The best, perhaps only, way to thrive in an uncertain world is to learn from the antifragile and shun the merely robust. Evolution is a good example of an antifragile system: chaos, stress and challenge provoke the flourishing of random mutations which benefit [...]