Thread: Black Swan: By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

This book was as stimulating as it was difficult…….I’m glad I read it, I got a lot from it.

Briefly: It concerns our attitudes and mistakes about predicting the future, essentially it is impossible! The book is very abstract, that’s why it’s a tough read, but if you read it you may (as I did) derive the following points: -

Rather than focusing on what we know, we ought to be focusing on what we don't know

Empirical naivety (as demonstrated beautifully on this board) is about trying to validate your point of view/idea/theory by looking for supporting evidence (In the soap box case, cut and paste articles that are either other peoples opinions, other examples of empirical naivety or short term media snapshots devoid of wider context).

What you ought to be doing, is looking for evidence to disprove your idea to test how its stands up, only then are you on the path to knowing what's going on.

It takes a brave and self-confident person to say, "I don't know!" where society demands certainty, history shows that life is anything but certain. A black Swan is an event of low predictability and high consequence.

Looking at past data to predict the future is a fallacy.

Reading the news and keeping up with media actually decreases your awareness of what's going on.

Modern economics (i.e. what you get on market reports, Bloomberg and other such shows) is nothing but intellectual fraud dressed up in mathematics designed to bore and confuse people from asking the real questions.

Sorry this is just my take on it, you are welcome for a cut and paste review elsewhere, I thought some of the board thinkers would benefit from this one (I would consider a swap if anybody has anything of interest)

The world is less linear than we think.

The Black Swan.

I enjoyed this book. I liked Fooled by Randomness a lot also.

So many points, are what we untuitively do and think and what we observe others doing.

It's great. I bought it in Heathrow to cheer myself up during a 10 hour delay. As Loxley points out it's wonderfully illustrated by this forum.

Originally Posted by Robin Friday

How things that were seen as retrospectively inevitable were in fact totally unexpected leading up to the events.

Exactly. And it's taken to extremes with conspiracy theories. Helps people make sense of things.

tried to read it, couldn't. i ain't that smart. had my brother give me a precis of it in the pub. lots of really inetresting points.

Come off it Hales. You said that on the other thread. A lot of it reads like listening to a conversation or someone chatting. There are some lofty ideas but it's easy enough to read and certainly not inaccessible.

maybe it was his style mate, didn't like it. seemed rather flippant and over-bearing.