...except, the whole problem is you can't avoid it. What is a Black Swan? I'm glad you asked, because Nassim Nicholas Taleb will be here to tell you all about his new theory, detailed in his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. This is a tough concept, so in preparation, I'm going to give it a whirl. (Also, here's a glossary.) A Black Swan is a highly unlikely event; something that we cannot predict. What makes a true Black Swan are three characteristics, 1) it is unpredictable, and 2) it has a huge impact, and 3) it is something that we usually say we could have predicted, but not until after the fact. Stock market crashes and spikes are Black Swans, so was the devastating Tsunami of 2004. The reverse is also true: a Black Swan is also when something that is highly likely doesn't happen. So, what is there to be done about these catastrophic events? Taleb-- who, incidentally, used to hold the title of Professor in the Science of Uncertainty-- has got some interesting theories about how to deal with the giant birds, and even how to turn them to your advantage.
Blog of the Nation
How do you account for magnitude of impact of extremistans, it is obviously at times intuitive, but can a particular extremistan be factored out to analyse the other constituent aspects of the given black-swan.
The deaths of powerful personalities, such as presidents. Also battles that come out unpredictably.
What do you think of 9/11 as a Black Swan event? Do you think a lot of people want to believe it happened because of what they are told by the media?
The mundane and complex get conflated. It was easy to guess that Mr Bush's war in Iraq would fail. It was not easy to know the details and apparent sequence of events. Because of that, we may erroneously decide that it is Mr Bush's incompetance that led to failure, when in fact the probability of success was nil, no matter what.
If skill does not play a part in success, what about personal qualities such as persistence and adaptability?
I can appreciate that tsuanmis are unpredictable because earthquakes are unpredictable. How does Katrina fit in?
Everyone knew it could happen, most believed it would happen, it was preventable and should not have happened, but when it did happen, few if anyone, was prepared.
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