A Black Swan, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is a highly improbable event with three key characteristics: it is unpredictable, it has an important effect on history, and an explanation is created for it afterwards to make it make sense.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable will appeal to anyone looking for a different perspective on risk assessment. Dr. Taleb’s book is effective in showing how conventional risk evaluation methods fall short of adequately expressing the gravity of rare events.
The author also offers basic strategies for managing Black Swans and using them as a development tool. Furthermore, he questions academics, claiming that their way of thinking and models fail in predicting unusual events.
Taleb provides numerous examples of how statistics are misused. He confronts economists and politicians for their way of thinking that is facilitated by a continuous dependency on mathematical models that are inadequate for the dangerously random environment we live in.
Unfortunately, due to the technical and mathematical examples, the book may be difficult for some readers. This shamelessly complex writing, on the other hand, tests the reader’s capacity to understand and analyze the operation of the modern socio-economic system.
Overall, Black Swan emphasizes the numerous difficulties and failures associated with making predictions. It directs the reader’s attention to the greater picture. The book brilliantly implements philosophy and mathematics to demonstrate how modern thinking has flaws in anticipating what is only viewed as unpredictable.
Black Swan logic makes what you don’t know far more relevant than what you do know. Consider that many Black Swans can be caused and exacerbated by their being unexpected.
