Touristification
Stripping the uncertainty out of an activity until it's dead.
Taleb's word for what happens when you over-plan, over-prepare, and remove all the unpredictable parts of an experience. The trip becomes the itinerary. The conversation becomes the agenda. The relationship becomes the schedule. The life becomes the calendar.
The complaint isn't against planning. It's against over-planning that removes the qualities that made the activity worth doing in the first place. A backpacking trip with every restaurant pre-booked, every museum slotted, every walk timed isn't really backpacking anymore.
For operators, the warning applies to processes that over-formalise. Pre-planned customer interactions kill the genuine connection. Pre-scripted meetings kill the actual discussion. The structure suffocates the substance.
Examples in the wild
Highly scripted sales calls often perform worse than ones that allow genuine conversation. The script removes the antifragility that lets the salesperson respond to what the customer actually says.
Over-quantified investment processes (every decision passed through 47 filters) often produce worse results than judgment-based ones. The complexity removes the human signal.
Vacations planned hour by hour often feel less rejuvenating than ones with looser structure. The uncertainty was part of the value.
Touristification is one of the mental models we apply through real cases inside the Pareto MBA — a part-time program for professionals who want to think clearly about business.