Nassim Nicholas taleb in antifragile says that current occidental organisation try to control risk, so that when it happens it does huge damage. He take the debt as one example of increasing sensibility to risk.
optimism is often antifragility, like in emerging countries... there people may say : thing are changing, rules are changing, unexpected may happens ... fantastic, maybe I could get out of hell on that new wave. about the pendulum of history, there is a concept of "maslow windows" http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/does-war-bring-prosperity-or-is-it.html and the cycle it is in. it seems we are just before that period, and the bottom. If you hear people today,in rich countries, all is awful, all is poisoned in food, all is poisoned in cities... yet all statistic say the opposite, that health is increasing (except some minor but increasing consequence of those fear, like low immunization, old organic food diseases, iron anaemia, medication abuse and refusal, stress disorders, poverty induced by money wasting ) in emerging countries they experience "stress induced growth" while we experience "stress induced disorder"... we are fragile, they are anti-fragile. Funny that the country hosting silicon valley, yet less than EU, experience such fragility. I was surprised that sandy did not make new-york even stronger like have done all tragedy there before, like it happens for Beyrouth, Germany, japan, Korea. Maybe new york is no more antifragile... 2013/5/7 Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> > Randy wuller wrote: > > What he can't explain is why anyone would run around the internet trying > to stop people from investigating a phenomenon. It makes no sense and is > probably a symptom of the very negative period (I would describe it as the > age of pessimism) we find ourselves living through. When the pendulum > shifts and we enter an optimistic age, everything will seem possible and as > such being for something will be much more productive (it always is) than > being against something. You will find a lot less Cude's running around, > thank goodness. > > Yes. I have long felt that we are living in an age of pessimism. Also, > people have the notion that we are living through rapid technological > progress, but I disagree. Progress was much faster from 1890 to 1950. As > Chris Tinsley said, every major technology was invented by then and we have > been making only incremental improvements ever since. By that date we had > computers, semiconductors, lasers, jet aircraft and just about everything > else. > > In one of my papers I quote from the author Walter Lord about ages of > optimism. He wrote: > > "The spirit of an era can’t be blocked out and measured, but it is there > nonetheless. And in these brief, buoyant years it was a spark that somehow > gave extra promise to life. By the light of this spark, men and women saw > themselves as heroes shaping the world, rather than victims struggling > through it. > > Actually, this was nothing unique. People had seen the spark before, would > surely do so again. For it can never die as long as men breathe. But > sometimes it burns low, leaving men uncertain in the shadows; other times > it glows bright, catching the eye with breath-taking visions of the future." > > Quoted here: > > http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcomparison.pdf > > Ages of pessimism were described by Giorgio de Santillana in his book "The > Origins of Scientific Thought," (1961) chapter 19, describing the > intellectual atmosphere around 200 BC. It is a marvelous essay. Perhaps I > should upload the whole thing. Here are a few quotes. > > > Decline and Fall > > It is a common experience of our time that enough change takes place in > one generation to more than fill a century for our grandfathers. Things > seem to go the other way in antiquity after about 200 B.C.-a divide which > is marked not only by the death of Archimedes but by the consolidation of > Roman dominion over the Hellenistic empires. Intellectually, what had been > decades become centuries. . . . > > A. The Hellenistic states which came after the conquests of Alexander (and > Rome is only the last of them) had not only become a very mixed > civilization, they had become uniformly "big-time," with huge and fearsome > structures of power. State cults of divine rulers, state-encouraged > superstitions, the worship of blind Fortune, had replaced the old city > gods. . . . Science was represented no longer by free men and respected > elders of the community, but by subsidized intellectuals who were told to > go and perform and quote one another in ample institutions like the library > of Alexandria, and also (this was an order) to provide moral uplift and > entertainment for the arts-loving ruling class. . . . > > B. Economic decline has set in. There seems to be a failure of imagination > at the root of it all. A great and > stable and ever more complicated administration needs economic growth to > keep pace with it, and the Roman Empire seems to have been strangely > incapable of economic and political growth; even more so than the Chinese. > . . . Dullness, conformity, and gloom spread like a pall of smog over the > last centuries. Science became manuals and encyclopedias, literature became > stale rhetoric on "classic" models, or tales of the wondrous. > > C. The failure of imagination explains, among other things, why men became > so reactionary-minded, even when they thought they were entertaining the > most lofty and liberal ideals. Something like that was to occur again in > the American South. When Aristotle, the great master of ethics, said that > slavery is a fact of nature, and that we shall need slaves so long as the > shuttle will not run in the loom by itself, he had registered one of those > great mental blocks which foretell the end of a cycle. And this leads us to > what is obviously crucial, the lack of an applied science. > > Pure science is always a hazardous and unfinished affair, stretching out > its structures in perilous balance over the unknown. It does not suit men's > whims or comfort their fears. In order to be accepted by a tough-minded > society, it must produce unquestionable and stunning results, as happened > with Newton's laws. Otherwise, it will be told to lay off and not disturb > people's minds unnecessarily. . . . > > > - Jed > >
