This is such a great post on something I knew little about until I read this essay!
On idea 3:
Taleb is a fantastic thinker and inspiration for me - so it's really interesting to see how there are shared values between building anti-fragile systems with a bit of redundancy and permaculture. I wonder if there is something to be said about ergodicity here too.
On ideas 2 and 4:
These ideas vividly reminded me of a section from "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow, where they take a deep anthropological dive into the seasonal lives of foragers and hunter-gatherers. I remember them using fitting words to describe how prehistoric humans "coaxed" the land rather than farming it. There are definitely parallels here.
It's interesting because I suspect most permaculturists haven't heard of Taleb, even though his ideas really intersect. It is almost like two cultures that are orthogonal to each other - and although permaculturists care about the principles, much of the discourse is about the practicalities of how you grow thing and look after the land. I first came across him nearly 20 years ago during a year when I spent a lot of time playing poker and hanging out with professional poker players (my mis-spent youth!) and his book Fooled by Randomness came out and everybody was talking about it.
This is such a great post on something I knew little about until I read this essay!
On idea 3:
Taleb is a fantastic thinker and inspiration for me - so it's really interesting to see how there are shared values between building anti-fragile systems with a bit of redundancy and permaculture. I wonder if there is something to be said about ergodicity here too.
On ideas 2 and 4:
These ideas vividly reminded me of a section from "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow, where they take a deep anthropological dive into the seasonal lives of foragers and hunter-gatherers. I remember them using fitting words to describe how prehistoric humans "coaxed" the land rather than farming it. There are definitely parallels here.
Looking forward to reading more.
I like the idea of 'coaxing' the land!
It's interesting because I suspect most permaculturists haven't heard of Taleb, even though his ideas really intersect. It is almost like two cultures that are orthogonal to each other - and although permaculturists care about the principles, much of the discourse is about the practicalities of how you grow thing and look after the land. I first came across him nearly 20 years ago during a year when I spent a lot of time playing poker and hanging out with professional poker players (my mis-spent youth!) and his book Fooled by Randomness came out and everybody was talking about it.