Its very worth looking into. The concept is actually very key in the sort of decentralized society we might want to move towards, ESPECIALLY if we want to set up a society that can withstand internal and external shocks.
I would personally suggest reading "Fooled by Randomness" first since its a fairly easy read and provides the foundations for the ideas he discusses in 'antifragile.'
>Not now, but the first such study was certainly interesting! How is that different from what we have here?
The first such study was useful, but not interesting.
As to the difference between this paper and the first study linking exercise and heart disease, I see a couple relevant differences:
>The idea that we are solely responsible for our successes and failures already shapes social policy, so why wouldn't evidence for the contrary position do the same? At the very least, it should introduce more uncertainty and flexibility to evaluate specific circumstances.
In my view, the theory that luck has a strong effect on success and failure has already been well established in society. The proverb that "it's better to be lucky than good" is so old that no one knows how old it is. I don't believe that social policy is grounded in the theory that people are solely responsible for their own success or failure.