This little clump of DNA has been floating around for one billion years.

This tiny collection of liquids has managed to maintain its form.

The mortality of organisms is part of the species being anti-fragile.

You're just one of countless experiments that nature is running. You need to expire

for that lesson to be integrated. In like Err in early Mesopotamate, they would take the rotten

grain and they would ferment it into a drink. And that was what they would feed the lowest

levels of society. And this drink was slightly alcoholic. It messed with their development, with their

fertility. It basically turned them into a biological underclass.

The mythological representation of the robust Phoenix. Burns bright, becomes ashes, and then again

revives. It's resilient, but it doesn't improve over time.

The anti-fragile then would be the hydrant.

Every detractor from its strength increases a double fold.

It reminds me very much of the Bitcoin world will say the unpickable safe that just gets

stronger every time somebody tries to pick it.

Bitcoin is probably the most anti-fragile system ever developed by human beings.

So we're going to do something a little bit different today.

I'm joined by my producer, Mike Kelly, usually off camera, but today on camera.

Another fellow philosopher nerd who I've recently introduced to one of my favorite books,

which is this one, Nassim Taleb's Anti-Fragile.

We both have a copy of it here.

I don't read many books twice. This is one of a few that I have read twice. And you can tell my copy is pretty beat up. It's falling apart.

Very fragile for a book called anti-fragile. But I thought, you know, we were throwing around this

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