Strong upvoted. This is a great overview, thanks for putting it together! I’m going to be coming back to this again for sure.
Note that Effectuation and Antifragility explicitly trade off against each other. Antifragility trades away certainty for flexibility while Effectuation does the opposite.
Can you say more about this? You mention that effectuation involves “shift[ing] the rules such that the risks were no longer downsides”, but that looks a lot like hormesis/antifragility to me. The lemonade principle in particular feels like straight-up antifragility (unexpected events/stressors are actually opportunities for growth).
That claim is something that often seems to be true, but it’s one of the things I’m unsure of as a general rule. I do know that in practice when I try to mitigate risk in my own projects, and I think of anti-fragile and effectuative strategies, they tend to be at odds with each other (this is true of both the “0 to 1 Companies” and “AGI Risk” examples below”)
The difference between hormesis and the lemonade principle is one of mindset.
In general, the anti-fragile mindset is “you don’t get to choose the game but you can make yourself stronger according to the rules.” Hormesis from that mindset is “Given the rules of this game, how can I create a policy that tends to make me stronger to the different types of risks?”
The effectuative mindset is “rig the game, then play it.” From that perspective, the lemonade principle looks more like “Given that I failed to rig this game, how can I use the information I just acquired to rig a new game.”
You’re a farmer of a commodity and there’s an unexpected drought. The hormetic mindset is “store a bit more water in the future.” (and do this every time there’s a draught). The lemonade mindset is “Start a draught insurance company that pays out in water.”
I think I get you now, thanks. Not sure if this is exactly right, but one is proactive (preparing for known stressors) and one is reactive (response to unexpected stressors).
I’m not sure if this is the way I would think of it but I can kind of see it. I more think of them as different responses to the same sorts of stressors.
Strong upvoted. This is a great overview, thanks for putting it together! I’m going to be coming back to this again for sure.
Can you say more about this? You mention that effectuation involves “shift[ing] the rules such that the risks were no longer downsides”, but that looks a lot like hormesis/antifragility to me. The lemonade principle in particular feels like straight-up antifragility (unexpected events/stressors are actually opportunities for growth).
That claim is something that often seems to be true, but it’s one of the things I’m unsure of as a general rule. I do know that in practice when I try to mitigate risk in my own projects, and I think of anti-fragile and effectuative strategies, they tend to be at odds with each other (this is true of both the “0 to 1 Companies” and “AGI Risk” examples below”)
The difference between hormesis and the lemonade principle is one of mindset.
In general, the anti-fragile mindset is “you don’t get to choose the game but you can make yourself stronger according to the rules.” Hormesis from that mindset is “Given the rules of this game, how can I create a policy that tends to make me stronger to the different types of risks?”
The effectuative mindset is “rig the game, then play it.” From that perspective, the lemonade principle looks more like “Given that I failed to rig this game, how can I use the information I just acquired to rig a new game.”
You’re a farmer of a commodity and there’s an unexpected drought. The hormetic mindset is “store a bit more water in the future.” (and do this every time there’s a draught). The lemonade mindset is “Start a draught insurance company that pays out in water.”
I think I get you now, thanks. Not sure if this is exactly right, but one is proactive (preparing for known stressors) and one is reactive (response to unexpected stressors).
I’m not sure if this is the way I would think of it but I can kind of see it. I more think of them as different responses to the same sorts of stressors.