I imagine you meant to post this in the Antifragile thread.
Anyway, he does explain why he didn’t use robust or another existing word. He gives and example of shipping an item in the mail.
The item is “fragile” if if will be harmed by being dropped (or more broadly “volatility”).
A “robust” item will remain unchanged if it is dropped (experiences volatility).
An “antifragile” item will improve in value if it experience volatility. For example, muscles improve if they are exposed to volatility (exercise). The quality of restaurant food improves when volatility strikes—that is, when restaurants go out of business (as a category—the quality of food/service improves for clients, not for individual restaurants that close), because only the best food remains, and future competitors need to continually up the ante, like biological evolution.
His basic argument is that robust means “remains unchanged” and resilient means “returns to former state” and that there was not a word to describe things that require volatility for growth/benefit.
In the book, does he explain why he doesn’t use “robust” or “rugged,” instead of a neologism?
I imagine you meant to post this in the Antifragile thread.
Anyway, he does explain why he didn’t use robust or another existing word. He gives and example of shipping an item in the mail.
The item is “fragile” if if will be harmed by being dropped (or more broadly “volatility”).
A “robust” item will remain unchanged if it is dropped (experiences volatility).
An “antifragile” item will improve in value if it experience volatility. For example, muscles improve if they are exposed to volatility (exercise). The quality of restaurant food improves when volatility strikes—that is, when restaurants go out of business (as a category—the quality of food/service improves for clients, not for individual restaurants that close), because only the best food remains, and future competitors need to continually up the ante, like biological evolution.
His basic argument is that robust means “remains unchanged” and resilient means “returns to former state” and that there was not a word to describe things that require volatility for growth/benefit.