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Re:A World Without Power (2013) by mywittyname on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @02:20PM (#20750179)
Why do people say antifragile instead of robust?
Re:A World Without Power (2013) by kgermino on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @03:18PM (#20750877)
DuskStar is pretty close.

Anti-fragile describes systems that improve from disorder. Robust describes ones that resist disorder.

The ceramic plate is robust: it’s very strong, and unlikely to break when things go wrong (e.g. it gets dropped). But it’s not anti-fragile, it will never be made better by dropping, at best it won’t get worse.

The petrol market in Puerto Rico is anti-fragile because the disorder of small power failures made it better, they added backup power so that the system would be more robust next time the power went out.

Re:A World Without Power (2013) by rwallace on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @03:15PM (#20750839)
Because they mean different things. A robust system is one that can tolerate stress without suffering much harm. An antifragile system is one that actually benefits from stress.
Re:A World Without Power (2013) by DuskStar on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @02:29PM (#20750328)
IMO it's the difference between a really strong piece of ceramic that happens to not break when you whack it with a hammer, and something like safety glass that shatters yet stays intact. The ceramic is robust, but with a big enough whack it'll shatter into a million pieces - but the fragility of the safety glass is known and prepared for to the point where it breaking doesn't lead to a complete failure.
Re:A World Without Power (2013) by mywittyname on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @04:21PM (#20751641)
I discovered that this is the titular concept behind a popular self-help/philosophy book.
Re:A World Without Power (2013) by twic on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @02:55PM (#20750605)
Sounds smarter.