Philosophy Now Forum

Eleni Panagiotarakou benefits from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s attack on the follies of over-cautiousness.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/97/Anti ... olas_Taleb

The article says: "By contrast, artificial, man-made systems are seen as inherently fragile."

Artificial, man-made systems seem fragile but far from it. Just look at the Internet and how robust it is.

Man-made systems are more robust than Taleb understands or cares to admit. Even the financial crisis of 2008, which he points to as an example of fragility, did not cause the entire system to collapse. Instead the system found regeneration. What it needed, like all systems need, was renewed attention and refurbishing.

Now, there is one man-made system that was fragile from the start, Communism. As a human governing system it based itself too much on idealism and not enough on materialism, thus made wobbly and weak from the beginning. It ignored and denied the flux of economic life and the world. All systems, natural and man-made, need renewal and refurbishing to remain alive and awake.