Talk:Antifragile (book)

Reads like an advertisement

This whole article (and pretty much everything touching Taleb in Wikipedia) feels like an advertisement, with tons of Taleb-specific jargon which is out of place in an encyclopedia article. I removed a couple of really-egregious paragraphs, but it might be worth taking a pass-through and cutting out the majority of this and related article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.58.161.162 (talk) 20:00, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Distracts, people!

I removed a digression on how to logically categorize the Green Lumber Fallacy. Though an interesting logical point, I think it distracts from the article on antifragility.

The Green Lumber Fallacy has a truth value of "T" per the Material conditional in logic because the consequence of the statement is true and therefore the statement holds true even if the antecedent is false. This would suggest it is not a fallacy. However, it is a fallacy as per the Logical consequence in logic where the relationship between statements holds true when one logically "follows from" one or more others. Valid logical arguments are ones in which the conclusions follow from its premises, and its conclusions are consequences of its premises.

It isn't referenced as having come from the book, so I don't see a reason to keep it in. Esplinr (talk) 16:48, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

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The opposite of fragile is tough. The author may coin antifragile and sell more books, as English has infinite room to change over time. Still, the article reads like a puff piece for the book because it does not question an obviously fallacious claim that our language falls short on antonyms. I'll do a little research and edit in a more neutral tone soon. Meanwhile, I'll monitor the talk page. Jimgettman (talk) 17:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

There are > 180 scientific references to antifragile on google scholar and the mathematical concept including a paper in nature. Antifragile is a mathematical concept. 198.228.195.128 (talk) 20:56, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Congrats on not liking the book. Did you read the part where the author studied hundreds of languages and couldn't find a word to describe what he was thinking or did you just want to bitch? 2601:681:4801:7AF0:900F:2251:FA6B:B53A (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

2012 or 2014?

Amazon is claiming the book was published in 2014, which one is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Supremedemency (talk • contribs) 15:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Does someone not like Alan Blinder??

Why on earth does Taleb's criticism of Alan Blinder get its own section in an article of this brevity? It reads like someone has a vendetta. dweinberger 14:32, 4 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dweinberger (talk • contribs)

Removing Template

I plan on removing the template that says this article reads like an advertisement. I’m struggling to see how this should be edited to correct b/c it doesn’t read like one to me. If the editor felt that strongly about it, he should have posted his concerns to this page rather than simply throwing up a template. VergilDen (talk) 18:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

It was added by Harizotoh9. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I should be able to scan a page and get some idea what the book is about. I do that and I'm still at a loss. Is it a philosophy book? A science book? Self-help? Commentary? Fiction? It uses in-universe terms and language, and seems to try to be selling me on these ideas, rather than dispassionately explaining them in an encyclopedic manner. The secitons have odd headings like "Skin in the game", and "Via negativa". It just comes off as very jargon heavy and lacking encyclopedic formatting. Harizotoh9 (talk) 20:56, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Taleb’s books can’t be summarized easily, if at all (suggest you read AF if you think otherwise). Hence the difficulty book reviewers have had - the most coherent reviews are by those that haven’t read it. The best way to summarize the book, as we’ve done with this article, is to summarize the key concepts. 173.3.105.52 (talk) 23:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

If Taleb's inscrutable style is key to how his ideas are communicated, whereas the ideas themselves are difficult to summarize, it seems to me that analysis and commentary on his style should make up a larger portion of this page. Handpigdad (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Taleb's style is the opposite of inscrutable, since he clearly defines the terms and concepts he uses. His specific definitions are likely a reaction to widespread "pop-culture bastardization" of his previous works, where people who haven't read his books cite them to argue the opposite of what they actually mean (like all the ignoramuses saying COVID was a "Black swan event"). The book is not "hard to summarize", it's just dense. And yes, we do a pretty poor job of it currently. DFlhb (talk) 12:06, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Please stop adding long quotes

I removed another of the long quotes from the summary section. If Taleb's ideas are not able to be summarized, perhaps they are not coherent enough to warrant the effort which has gone into this page. Either way, a lack of editor skill at clarifying and summarizing—especially in a page that is so closely watched by fans of the subject author—is no excuse to leave in extended quotes which, frankly, poorly explain the ideas themselves. Please consult WP:OVERQUOTE and refrain from reflexively reverting edits which remove long quotes from this article. Handpigdad (talk) 07:17, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

You write "perhaps they are not coherent enough to warrant the effort which has gone into this page", then you remove a central element summarizing the book for, of all places, Nature. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and the topics are matched to their level of difficulty. This is the same problem with editors requesting to dumb down math articles, things should not be simpler than the scientific level required. Limit-theorem (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Look, my number one problem with this section is actually that I think it's confusing to the reader to use a long quote from an entirely different work by the same author to define a concept within this work. That's just not appropriate for a summary of this book. The quote may be good for a description of the idea of antifragility as an idea, but is not appropriate for a summary. I don't understand why, if you are so dedicated to this author's ideas, you are so resistant to actually making improvements to this page, which continues to read as if it has made a couple of trips through some kind of automatic translation software.

As for "dumbing down", there are a great number of articles for very difficult philosophers that refrain from extensive block quoting and this advertising-like use of personal jargon. This article makes it appear as if no one other than Taleb has ever thought of these matters, which, while is simply not how thought works. Handpigdad (talk) 15:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)