I've been having a wonderful time reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Antifragile, a profoundly eccentric and eccentricly profound book. It's not at all easy to summarize -- I'll steal a couple of quotes from here and there. Putting this in OI because Taleb is decidely anti communist and pro market (he was a hedge fund trader for years) but he's got the kind of insights the Left needs to engage with.

“The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder


“This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

Here's a link to a review in the New York Times, nearly every criticism made I'd see as praise: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/bo...anted=all&_r=0