Episode 13 - Locally Grown is Antifragile

Locally Grown with Jim Fini

In June, I did my annual salmon impersonation and swam upstream from FL to my spawning grounds of New England. During my visit, I spent some time with dear friends in Peterborough, NH and discovered a new book in “the throne room” that their son was reading. It was Anti Fragile by Nassem Taleb. Initially I thought it belonged to my friend John but I was impressed to see his son was the owner. I read one of Taleb’s previous books, the best-seller The Black Swan and it was pretty darn good, so I bought a copy and dove in. What I found was a more elegant explanation and confirmation of some of the key concepts in my own book, Locally Grown: The Art of Sustainable Government published in 2019, six years later than the 2012 Antifragile. Little did I know it but I was recognizing the same evolution of our society towards fragility and away from antifragility. Spoiler alert: This is not a good thing. The book left enough of an impression on me that I wanted to share some of its insights and how they apply to building better government and better economic outcomes for each of us.