A concept developed by the writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb meant to describe a situation where difficult conditions actually promote strength and improvement. As suggested in the name of the term, anti-fragility stands in contrast to fragility. Think of it this way: fragile things are likely to break if anything goes wrong; anti-fragile things are likely to get stronger.
As examples, Taleb uses a number of biological processes. For instance, in body building, adding controlled stress to a muscle causes it to grow over time, rather than causing it to get weaker.
If your mom's favorite flower vase had been anti-fragile, it would not only survived when you hit it with the football that time, it would have gotten slightly thicker and stronger. Instead, it smashed into a thousand pieces and you spent that weekend grounded.
Similarly with the U.S. financial system in 2008, which almost collapsed when the sub-prime housing bubble burst, threatening the onset of a second Great Depression. In Taleb's formulation, the issue wasn't necessarily the bursting of the bubble - that kind of thing happens from time to time - but the fragility of the system, which was susceptible to a shock of that kind. In his thinking, a better system would not only be prepared to weather traumatic events, but would end up stronger after they happen.
