Extremistan

In Extremistan environments, there can be wild randomness and extreme deviations. Typically, there’re no physical constraints and no known upper/lower limits (e.g. knowledge, financial markets, e-book sales, social media “likes”). Thus, the outliers can make a big difference—if you add the net worth of Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates to a group of 1,000 people, it will drastically shift the average.

142

1.54K reads

MORE IDEAS ON THIS

Don’t use your past to explain the future.

Based on the only things we can be certain of – what has happened in our lives in the past – we weave a narrative that makes sense and expect that the future simply must unfold this way. For example, imagine you’re a turkey and for years you live on a farm, get to roam free every day and...

170

1.54K reads

Three lessons:

Taleb identifies 3 key features of Black Swans:
• Rarity: Black Swans are outliers that can’t be reasonably expected to happen based on past events.
• They have a profound impact on our society/world.
• Retrospective predictability: Although the events are unpr...

162

1.98K reads

Overview

Black Swans are not inconsequential anomalies, but a significant phenomenon that shapes the very world we live in. Many historical events that drastically impacted our socities and lives were actually Black Swan events. These incluse the 2 world wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 11 Sep 2001 ...

141

2.64K reads

What are Black Swans and why are they important

For thousands of years, it was widely believed that all swans were white. Then in 1697, a Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Australia, debunking this universal “truth” overnight. The term “Black Swan” has since been used to describe the occurrence of a seemingly-impossib...

155

2.11K reads

2 Types of uncertainty: Extremistan vs. Mediocristan

• In Mediocristan environments, there’s a limit to the amount of randomness or deviation from the average. Inequalities exist, but they’re mild or controlled. Usually, there’re some physical constraints (e.g. height, weight, running speed) which limit the amount of variability. F...

139

1.49K reads

Trying to assess real-world risk like you would in a game can lead you to making the wrong choices.

Another fallacy Taleb describes is called the ludic fallacy. This one explains why we do such bad jobs at getting the right insurance policy, for example.

When faced with the task to assess risk in the real world, we usually ...

142

1.57K reads

Black Swans dramatically change the reality of those, who aren't aware that they're coming

The author calls an even a "Black Swan" if it's unpredictable not because it's random, but because our outlook on what's possible was too narrow. Imagine you’d known about the 9/11 attacks in advance. You wouldn’t have been surprised. In some cases, a Black Swan is only a tragedy for a single per...

136

1.66K reads

CURATED FROM