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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

(Incerto #2)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Goodreads Author)

3.94 · Rating details · 86,506 ratings · 5,210 reviews

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was.

The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everythin ...more

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Hardcover, 366 pages

Published May 15th 2007 by Random House

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Apr 19, 2008 Aaron rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Zach

Recommended to Aaron by: Zach

This is a book that raises a number of very important questions, but chief among them is definitely the question of how the interplay between a good idea and an insufferable author combine to effect the reading experience?

This author is an a-hole. Full stop. He's dismissive, chronically insecure, unstructured and hostile towards his detractors. He engages in what may be the lowest form of rhetoric by pre-emptively attacking any critics (even before they've had the chance to come forward) as too This is a book that raises a number of very important questions, but chief among them is definitely the question of how the interplay between a good idea and an insufferable author combine to effect the reading experience?

This author is an a-hole. Full stop. He's dismissive, chronically insecure, unstructured and hostile towards his detractors. He engages in what may be the lowest form of rhetoric by pre-emptively attacking any critics (even before they've had the chance to come forward) as too stupid or blinkered to follow his argument. He's contemptuous towards entire disciplines (economics, law, social science) without making much attempt to engage with the concepts he's critiquing beyond the broadest levels of generality. He's got a huge chip on his shoulder towards the scientific/academic establishment (especially the Nobel committee - try taking a shot every time he makes an off-hand, tangential attack on Nobel and you've made your Friday night). Worst of all, he's endlessly digressive, and couches his digressions in the language of capricious genius rather than simple bad writing (he hits the occasional sweetnote with these tangents, but if anyone else who has read this thing cover to cover wanted to put a bullet in Yvgenia, feel free to step on up).

He's hard to like.

It's unfortunate, because at the core of all of the go-nowhere anecdotes and borderline psychobabble is a good analysis on how people are psychologically and socially ill-equipped to handle unexpected outlier events (which he persistently, desperately refers to as "Black Swans", one of approximately 3000 new bits of not-too-essential terminology he's trying to appropriate for himself) and can't learn from our mistakes. It's a wonderful theory for a book one third the length of this one, and I'm happy to admit that some of the better moments were probably missed by this reader simply because of the exhaustion of filtering through the surplusage.

I am sure that the failure to give this book five or six stars (the possibility of a six star rating might itself be something of a Black Swan) is due to my own marginal intellect. The author has made it clear that any other explanation would be entirely unpredictable. ...more

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Jul 18, 2008 Nick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a great book. And, to take a page from Taleb, anyone who doesn't think so is wrong.

No, no, there are a number of problems with the book. A bit bloated, a bit repetitive. And NNT does make the misstep every once and a while. To take a very small instance, Taleb bases a short section of the book upon the idea that to be "hardened by the Gulag" means to become "harder" or "stronger" rather than its true meaning of someone who has become inured to certain difficulties, not necessarily strong This is a great book. And, to take a page from Taleb, anyone who doesn't think so is wrong.

No, no, there are a number of problems with the book. A bit bloated, a bit repetitive. And NNT does make the misstep every once and a while. To take a very small instance, Taleb bases a short section of the book upon the idea that to be "hardened by the Gulag" means to become "harder" or "stronger" rather than its true meaning of someone who has become inured to certain difficulties, not necessarily stronger because of it.

However, this along with other problems are mere quibbles relative to the strengths of this book (and, I think it's worth noting that many of the negative reviews on this site base their hostile reactions to Taleb on just such insignificant trifles.) The Black Swan deals with the fascinating topic of the nature uncertainty and approaches it from a variety of intellectual angles, mainly the psychological blocks that we are both born with and have created for ourselves that prevent our understanding of the improbable: the narrative fallacy and the problem of induction (the tenuous relationship of cause and effect); our reliance on flawed mathematical models; the expect problem. Each one of these discussions reinforces his main argument but captivate independently as they are insights to the way we process information.

Taleb also references numerous thinkers that are not as well known in the popular consciousness and provides wonderful anecdotes and examples from their life and work that illustrate his points and entertain the reader.

Many other reviewers comment on the Taleb's unique style: arrogant and aggressive. Just because he's arrogant, however, doesn't mean he's wrong--this man has spent most of his life dedicated to this subject and it shows. And his antagonistic style seems appropriate--it's hard to go against the establishment, even if your goal is truth; people aren't going to believe you. He attacks the Nobel Prize in Economics because according to him, the financial models created by the prizewinners that that Swedish committee has rewarded have done a great deal of harm to people's understanding of the true economic risks involved. Preposterous? Sacrilege? These are the exclamations of narrow-minded thinkers who have yet to examine the evidence thoroughly.

I, personally, found Taleb's style to be amusing and engaging. It reflects a true passion and dedication to the beliefs he expounds in the book, beliefs that are worth some attention. If we live in a time of uncertainty, it's a good thing to understand what that really means. ...more

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Jun 21, 2008 rmn rated it liked it

Shelves: financial-math-non-fiction

I can summarize this book in two words: Shit happens.

Actually, I should be more fair since the author spent 300 pages laying out his beliefs and arguing his conclusions. The real summary of this book should be: Shit happens more often than you think.

The author, Taleb, rails against economics, most philosophers, and the way we incorporate news to allow us to make sense of events and everyday happenings. He wants us to unlearn the way we think and learn, while destroying the modern beliefs in stat ...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Mark rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction

First, a disclaimer. I am, professionally, a statistician. I do not have a Ph.D. in my field because I feel that statisticians with Ph.D.'s are devoid of practicality and usefulness to the real world. I work at a factory where I assist engineers in better understanding how processes work and making things better. I generally feel that I make a worthwhile contribution to the world. I bought and read this book because it was critical of statisticians. I do not believe in surrounding myself with 'y First, a disclaimer. I am, professionally, a statistician. I do not have a Ph.D. in my field because I feel that statisticians with Ph.D.'s are devoid of practicality and usefulness to the real world. I work at a factory where I assist engineers in better understanding how processes work and making things better. I generally feel that I make a worthwhile contribution to the world. I bought and read this book because it was critical of statisticians. I do not believe in surrounding myself with 'yes men' in the form of books and actively seek to challenge my personal beliefs through the things I read and study. Also, the only fields of statistics that I have ever avoided are time series (forecasting) and actuarial science (incredibly boring).

NNT (as he loves to refer to himself in the book) is an idiot. Actually, he's worse than an idiot, he's a charlatan of the worst order. If I were NNT I wouldn't have to defend that statement at all, pretentious phonies reading this to feel intelligent about themselves would nod in agreement at the 'wisdom' I've laid at their feet. But I'm not NNT and I believe in substantiating otherwise baseless claims.

One of the first things criticized in this book is the narrative for conveying information. Yet that is all NNT does in this book is lay out narrative. No philosopher is quoted, no idea co-opted without some flourishing tale of how they were never appreciated despite their obvious intelligence or of how they were recognized for their genius but the cold, unending march of human forgetfulness relegated them to the annals of history until someone else rediscovered the idea and NNT bought the original book at a used bookstore in some non-American city that has an air of academia to it.

Later in the book, NNT makes one of his few cogent points (I'll chalk it up to luck on his part). Silent evidence is a major problem everywhere we look and in every field (sadly). The negative studies are almost never published, the failures are not chronicled, etc... The hard thing about silent evidence is that it's almost never available at all and we rarely recognize that we're not seeing it. Yet NNT frequently ignores silent evidence. He discusses casinos and all the money they put into preventing cheating (something that, apparently, comes from mediocristan and is easily predictable) but mocks them for doing so because the biggest losses they'd suffered in recent history had nothing to do with cheating. Apparently NNT failed to recognize that perhaps the systems in place so effectively prevented cheating that it was no longer a potential source of lost income. Perhaps if he had looked further back in time he would have seen the financial cost of cheating. It would be like criticizing a store for employing anti-shoplifting techniques when their biggest loses came from a lost shipment, a dishonest accountant and some other unpredictable and essentially unavoidable problem. The suggestion from NNT must be that dealing with the things we can is stupid and we should focus on the things that we cannot predict (and therefore cannot prevent).

NNT spends a whole chapter discussing luck and how every successful economist, banker, investor or other scalable professional is successful not due to skill, but to luck. I'm not going to debate that as the entire premise renders coherent arguments null and void (you cannot disprove the assertion that someone is chronically lucky, well played NNT). However, this luck doesn't apply to his favorite philosophers. NNT spends a chapter lauding Poincare for being a 'thinking mathematician' because he didn't rely on rigor, but rather intuition. NNT lambastes other mathematicians for criticizing Poincare by calling his techniques 'hand waving' which he decides is due to childishness on the part of the other 'nerd' mathematicians. But success due to intuition is not success due to skill and is therefore not success to be recognized or rewarded (at least, that's the case with bankers and investors). NNT doesn't understand the reason why mathematicians and other 'hard' scientists don't like hand waving is because there's no way to know if it's success or luck, it isn't repeatable and it isn't verifiable. Also, NNT ignores the silent evidence of intuition. He looks to Poincare as a savior and steward of his profession while ignoring the unmarked graves of all the other 'thinking mathematicians' who failed miserably in their intuitive hand waving.

For all of his experimental 'proof' offered in defense of claims about how we understand, learn and process things, NNT never gives more than one study as evidence (although he will claim, without a footnote or other reference) that many other studies have verified that particular claim. He accepts these theories as facts and bases large portions of his argument upon them, yet he criticizes doctors, biologists and other scientists for using experimental evidence to make theories on why things work instead of simply accepting that they do work. How many times does he bring up 'anchoring' as a theory for why things happen, yet he cannot accept the fact that perhaps birds and humans use different brain regions to perform similar tasks?

NNT at one point is criticizing the models that trader and economists have made to predict the stock market and quotes a study that compared the model's performance to that of the naive model (today's value is my guess for tomorrow) which concluded that, "statistically sophisticated or complex models DO NOT NECESSARILY provide more accurate forecasts than simpler ones" (page 154, emphasis added). The study didn't prove that complex models are no different from simple ones, just that not all of them were better (but no claim that they were ever worse). So why would I get rid of something that doesn't do worse but could do better? If I buy a lottery ticket that is guaranteed to make me my money back and could make me more than what I paid, why wouldn't I buy it? Now, I understand that predicting the future is foolhardy, and I'm not saying that it's something we should put a lot of stock into (pun intended) but past information can give us a general idea about the future, even if it doesn't give us a great one.

NNT passes himself off as some cool headed, rational thinker who sees beyond the noise and chaos of the world and invites the world to join him on the greener side of the pasture. But nearly all of his arguments are based on contradictions with other arguments that he has made. Further, the remaining arguments that are defensible are impossible to disprove because they impossible to prove. Much like a believing person who argues that without empirical proof of man evolving from lower life or of the big bang, the scientist cannot be right, NNT argues that because models are not perfect, no one can use them to any benefit.

The book is altogether too long given the core point of the book which is this: the most important things that happen (or that don't happen) are unknowable. Because we cannot predict the future with certainty or even near certainty, we should not even try but rather just do whatever the heck we want because sometimes it's just as good. ...more

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Jun 14, 2015 Jan Rice rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, science-math, favorites-best-books, psychology

The first time through, I listened to this book with my husband, usually while I was cooking. Although I tried to stop and mark important passages, I ended up thinking the book was not very systematic. The second time through, chapter by chapter, the method in his madness is more apparent.

I continued to think Taleb is more a popularizer than an innovator. But even if so, that's not so shabby. He's trying to revolutionize the way we think, and the more we rehearse that, the better.

Nassim Nichol ...more

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Dec 21, 2007 Greg rated it it was ok

This book has diminishing returns on the time spent reading it. Taleb's jeremiad is directed against - well - everyone who is not as enlightened as he is. I trudged through this book because - well - everyone is reading it and enlightened people should know how to comment on it. There, I did it. Now I can look down on all those people out there who aren't enlightened like Taleb. And now, me.

Taleb is actually on to something important if you can tolerate his self-importance enough to filter his v ...more

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Aug 23, 2008 Daniel rated it it was ok

I stopped reading this because the author is so pompous and annoying.

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Jan 26, 2012 Ted rated it liked it

Shelves: reviews-liked, psychology, philosophy, math, economics

Taleb is a pretty good writer, but I thought this was a very uneven book. As I read it I was constantly alternating between "Wow, that's a really great insight, a great way of presenting it" and "Gee, who doesn't realize that?", or even "That just seems flat-out wrong".

It's a book that should have been read by the quantitative analysts ("quants") working for the hedge funds and investment banks in early 2008; but it probably wouldn't have made much difference in the financial melt-down that foll Taleb is a pretty good writer, but I thought this was a very uneven book. As I read it I was constantly alternating between "Wow, that's a really great insight, a great way of presenting it" and "Gee, who doesn't realize that?", or even "That just seems flat-out wrong".

It's a book that should have been read by the quantitative analysts ("quants") working for the hedge funds and investment banks in early 2008; but it probably wouldn't have made much difference in the financial melt-down that followed. The problem with all their quantitative analysis was, as Taleb rightly points out, that it assumed that everything that could happen in the markets belonged to the domain of bell-curve events, and that hence probabilities could be computed for any possible market outcome. But "Black Swan" events (very rare, not even things we think about happening, and not linked to the factors that determine day to day market swings) do occur, they are of course unpredictable, and they can have massive effects. Some sorts of unpredictable events (such as unexpected conflict flareups, deaths of influential national leaders) are not Black Swan events because they are events we know about, and they are not really unexpected - only the timing is in doubt. Others, the real Black Swans, such as 9/11 and the derivatives bubble, have effects that play out over years.

But really, other than as a cautionary tale for those whose job it is to predict (unpredictable) things on a daily basis, these observations probably don't surprise most people who have thought much about the nature of reality and our grasp of the future. No one that I know owns a crystal ball. Without one even broad outlines of the future, that we believe are pretty certain, still have an element of risk/uncertainty; and perhaps a more significant element than we realize.

As the esteemed Donald (not Trump, the other one) pointed out, in one of his rare truly insightful comments, there are the unknowns that we know about, and the unknowns that we don't know about. It's the latter part of reality where the Black Swans live. (Of course, they also live in Australia, which is how the phrase got its meaning.) ...more

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Jul 17, 2008 Will rated it it was ok

This review will be comprised of two parts: a review of the ideas presented and a review of the way in which it is written

(A) The ideas

There is no question here, Taleb is an erudite and intelligent scholar. His take on epistomology and the scientific method breathe fresh air into the subject and gloss it with some 21st century context.

It would be difficult for me to overstate the importance of the black swan problem in modern life and the degree to which we are, as societies, unaware of its impa ...more

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Mar 08, 2008 Ben rated it did not like it

Shelves: shit

If you skipped your Systems, Statistics, or Random Variables classes in college, or if you think you know more than everyone else on Wall Street, then read this book. It will reaffirm what you already know. To the rest of you: this book will reaffirm what you thought you knew when you were 5 or 6...with an updated vocabulary.

I put this book down after the first chapter, but thought I would give it another chance, that I was being unfair. When I read the second chapter (which is a metaphor for w ...more

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Feb 21, 2010 Bonnie rated it did not like it

Shelves: nonfiction

This felt like it was trying to be the next The Tipping Point or Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and just failed spectacularly, on all counts. Most importantly, perhaps, was that it was dull and a chore to read. In the little footnotes suggesting a chapter was unneccessary for a nontechnical reader and could be skipped (read: you are too dumb to understand this chapter, so don't even bother), like Chapter 15, I gladly took his advice because it meant one le This felt like it was trying to be the next The Tipping Point or Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and just failed spectacularly, on all counts. Most importantly, perhaps, was that it was dull and a chore to read. In the little footnotes suggesting a chapter was unneccessary for a nontechnical reader and could be skipped (read: you are too dumb to understand this chapter, so don't even bother), like Chapter 15, I gladly took his advice because it meant one less chapter to slog through. I finished it out of a perverse desire to finish things, nothing more.

My biggest complaint with the book, though, was that the author came across as a giant tool. He loves to use sarcastic quotes to criticize things like "prestigious" institutions (despite mentioning multiple times that he himself attended the prestigious Wharton School). He also often makes unecessary--and often derogatory--asides in parantheses (I do the same thing, but I'm not a published author who has things like an editor and a paycheck)and snipes at newspapers, the French, Harold Bloom, academics, CEOs, MBAs/businessmen (but did I mention he attended Wharton?), the rich, the Nobel Prize, etc. Whether his hatreds are justified or not, the way he does it comes across as terribly juvenile and he never misses a cheap shot. He appears to see himself as some kind of persecuted genius, taking on the establishment. He loves nothing more than describing how some so-called "expert" goes apopleptic when confronted with his brilliant Black Swan idea (which he keeps reminding you he came up with at the age of 22) and fantasizes about dropping rats down overly serious people's shirts to watch them squirm (is he actually 12 or just a bastard? who knows).

Overall he comes across as arrogant, condescending, smug, self-righteous and incredibly pretentious, the kind of person you get trapped in conversation with at a party who will either goad and/or mock you for his own amusment or bore you with self-indulgent pontifications that include name-dropping obscure writers to impress upon you how smart he is.

He also seems to be something of a failed/aspiring novelist, as he decides to make up the character of Yevgenia Krasnova, a fictional novelist whose book was a Black Swan, something that no one wanted to publish but then became a huge hit. Why does he have to make her up? The publishing industry is littered with these people, it would be simple to use a real person. But not only does he make her up (and does not even bother to tell you she is fake until the following chapter) but he gives several pages to her biography, invents fake friends and THEIR biographies and then comes back to her AGAIN, all with no real relevance. These fictional characters could've been cut out entirely or replaced with real people and not affected the book at all. They are simply another one of his petty self-indulgences.

I could have saved time, money and my blood pressure level and probably been more entertained by simply reading the book's entry on Wikipedia. The central idea is good, but the execution oh-so-isn't. ...more

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Jan 25, 2016 Gendou rated it did not like it

Shelves: humor, fiction

This book profoundly nasty and intellectually demented. Taleb a classic science denier; oscillating between anti-science and pseudo-intellectual arguments. When some scientist says something he likes, he misrepresents it to fit his narrative. When the scientific consensus is against him, he cries grand conspiracy theory or slanders the methods of science. His argumentation in this book is like a case study in logical fallacies and crank red flags.

Special pleading.

Ignoring disconfirming evidence ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Heidi The Reader rated it liked it

Shelves: the-numinous-book-club, non-fiction

Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses "black swans", unexpected and life-changing events, and how life is far more uncertain than most believe it to be. He also examines, in-depth, how we fool ourselves into believing reality is otherwise by various means like confirmation bias (we look for evidence to support our existing beliefs) and narrative fallacies (the tendency to describe existence using linear stories when reality is far more complicated).

Mix in a heaping dose of storytelling and autobiograp ...more

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Mar 18, 2009 Rob rated it did not like it

A lot of blogs said a lot of nice things about this book, and from this I conclude that most of those bloggers either A) strictly read the executive summary or B) only read other bloggers. This is a pretty terrible book, and while it has one or two good ideas, they are better and more rigorously expressed in books like "Sway" or "The Drunkard's Walk" than they are in this shameless exercise in self promotion.

The fact that the author displays a limited understanding of the topic, and tends to lum ...more

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Sep 05, 2019 Seema Singh rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I love reading and I rarely criticise authors. I think it takes discipline to complete a book and thus authors deserves respect. This review is my first negative one and hopefully my last. I buddy read this which was the only positive aspect. We read about a chapter a day and every time we discussed it, we would be at a loss for words. I heard such great reviews about this book highlighting that it was quite controversial. Generally i seek out anything controversial but this author is just a reb I love reading and I rarely criticise authors. I think it takes discipline to complete a book and thus authors deserves respect. This review is my first negative one and hopefully my last. I buddy read this which was the only positive aspect. We read about a chapter a day and every time we discussed it, we would be at a loss for words. I heard such great reviews about this book highlighting that it was quite controversial. Generally i seek out anything controversial but this author is just a rebel without a cause. It was a perfect example of the dunning kruger effect (which is a concept that the author refers too in the book). About 40 % was contradictory ramblings, the other 40 % was an attack on the greatest scientists and philosophers of our time. In fact he even targets every person with an MBA. Another 10 % was about how the author knows more than anybody else in the world (he basically regurgitates known concepts and comes up with new words which he strings together to form nonsensical statements). For someone who clearly despises statistics, he claims to understand it better than a Phd student (i suppose its normal to spend all your valuable time becoming an expert in a subject so that you can go on to passionately discredit it). The lowest point was when he insulted autistic people encouraging them to send someone else to socialise at a party because apparently he is 'ceratin' that autistic people are incapable of socialising themselves. The last 10 % was basically a constant reminder that the bell curve and statistics in general is complete nonsense. Sorry I may have given the wrong stats (deliberately) but I'm sure that the author won't mind because who needs stats anyway. I honestly didn't see the point of the book. In the beginning of some chapters, he would agree with some mathematician or philosopher but by the end of the the very same chapter, he does a complete 360 (sorry there goes my reference to maths again). The amazing bit is that he actually uses so much of stats and science to explain his points but then goes on to discredit the very same principles. For someone who is preaching about the fact that most things can't be predicted with certainty (which is rather obvious), he is fairly 'certain' about his viewpoint. In fact he is so certain that he literally created his own aproach to randomness. If you are interested in arrogant ignorance, please read this book. This is by far the worst non fiction book I have read but it did give my friend and I plenty to laugh about so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I highly recommend reading this for pure entertainment. ...more

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Feb 08, 2011 carol. rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

Not as overbearingly arrogant as others claim; in fact, often very self depreciating.

More seriously, his writing style is terribly confusing, made worse by my own unfamiliarity with the subject and his insistence on personal jargon standing in for concepts. Very anectdotal as well as making use of "thought experiments" to illustrate concepts that could have done with more explanation and less story. Yes, I get his point that stories help us learn, but I would argue that stories work best as anal ...more

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Mar 26, 2009 Neil rated it really liked it

Shelves: mba, logic, philosophy

Okay, let's see if I got it straight...

An anti-academic academic weaves a non-narrative narrative about predicting the unpredictable into the theory that rigid theories are bad.

Oh, and count on things you can't conceive of happening happening.

Something like that.

Taleb's observations on the expectations and biases we hold, especially when estimating risk or uncertainty, are pretty dead on.

His key practical point is about the need for a NON-parametric look at any situation in which low-probabilit ...more

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Dec 08, 2013 Akash Nair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business-econ-mgmt, philosophy

Black Swan is easily one of the most challenging books I have read. Reading it felt like being part of a revolution. Difficult to comprehend during the first reading, it attacks the application of the Gaussian bell curve in Modern Portfolio Management Theory viciously and having read it a lot recently, it makes me feel like a fool. The book is a treasure trove if you are a quizzer. Contains a hell lot of names(philosophers, economists, mathematicians..). Makes you think hard and gives you a lot ...more

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May 18, 2007 Misha rated it it was ok

Shelves: tried-to-read

This book is a weird mix of novel ideas, bragging, and pseudo-science.

Taleb makes a strong case for his theory of black swans. It's an interesting and valuable theory but it's also one that could be communicated in a short conversation and does not need a whole book to contain it.

Taleb fills the rest of the pages by bragging about his own success and ridiculing established philosophers, economists, and anyone else he can think of. I'm not in any position to judge his opinions of these people, b ...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Riku Sayuj rated it really liked it

Landmark book for me as it pointed me to Chaos.

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Dec 09, 2007 Todd rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: Nerds

I only read the first 13 pages of this book, plus the prologue, but that was enough. In the first few pages he name-drops people like Umberto Eco and Nabokov, tells us about people who were rather unknown five years ago (but forgets to tell us that they are still rather unknown now), and compares himself to people in history who are/were actually influential. For a man who claims he is not writing an autobiography, he really works hard to impress the reader. He adds little bits of information in ...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Tanja Berg rated it it was ok

Shelves: psychology-psychiatry, science, pearl-ruled, non-fiction

Wall-banger at page 64. This might not be the final rating. I entertain the possibility of picking this up again, but at the moment I cannot bear the thought. The author is an annoying schmuck and that overshadows the concepts, which are quite interesting. You want to learn something useful within the same genre, pick up "Thinking, fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman instead.

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Aug 09, 2007 Adih Respati rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 05-sciencewriting, 12-contemplation, 09-economy

Black Swan, huge-impact improbable events (the success of google, attack of 9/11, invention of internet), shows that social sciences fail to predict various events (behaviors inculuded) by,and so far by merely , usingGaussian "bell curve" approach. The use of mathematics in social sciences overestimates what we know (observed past events)and underestimates what we don't (probable future events): too little science papers succeeded to make (near) accurate predictions; and successful inventions ar ...more

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May 06, 2017 Londi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have to admit that this book was a guilty pleasure, I really enjoyed it and some of the arguments presented on it are so interesting, but in general this is an uneven book, with a lot of generalizations that come out of nowhere and not so much intellectual background in elaborating its main thesis.

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Jan 07, 2013 Peter (Pete) Mcloughlin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: complexity, general-science, 00002both, 1801-to-1900, 10000-bce-to-500-ce, 0500-to-1500-ce, 1701-to-1800, 1960-to-1989, intellectual-history, world-history

I have read all four of NNT' s books three recently "Skin in the Game " Anti-fragile " and "The Black Swan" (I read 'fooled by randomness " too long ago to remember much). I like Anti-fragile the most with the Black Swan a close second. Black Swan stylistically appeals to me as nonfiction reader but anti-fragile delivers more goods but both deliver nonetheless

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May 22, 2018 Sense Of History rated it liked it

Shelves: methodology-of-history, theory-of-history

It has been more than two months since I read this book and only now I succeed in writing a review about what this book can mean for a historian. That says something about how difficult it is to separate the problematic aspects of this book (the arrogant and polemical tone) from the real content. Because Taleb does have something to say for those who look at the past.

For the sake of clarity, firstly his definition of Black Swans: these are unexpected events, both negative and positive, with a hu It has been more than two months since I read this book and only now I succeed in writing a review about what this book can mean for a historian. That says something about how difficult it is to separate the problematic aspects of this book (the arrogant and polemical tone) from the real content. Because Taleb does have something to say for those who look at the past.

For the sake of clarity, firstly his definition of Black Swans: these are unexpected events, both negative and positive, with a huge impact, where no prior warnings exist for those who experience the event, but of which we post-factually are able to give explanations and thus have the impression that they were nevertheless predictable. That is already quite something to chew on. What Taleb offers is the paradoxical side of Black Swans: they come unexpectedly, but we can explain them perfectly afterwards. Some examples: the First World War had to break out if you see how recklessly in the decades before an arms race was under way and how the political leaders underestimated the enormous implications of their aggressive behavior; the fall of the Communist bloc in 1989 could have been predicted, because there were many indications that the economies of those countries were broke, that they were military-technological giants on clay feet, and that their populations only confessed to the official ideology for appearances; and so on, and so on.

Taleb sketches nothing less here, than the work historians do (and by extension of course also journalists and other categories): explaining why something happened. You could have the impression that he actually takes this as a child's play: every one could predict the outcome, given the right facts. But of course, Taleb is not that stupid. In his book there is one striking example that, in all its simplicity, explains the core problem of historical observation. Taleb quotes a scientific experiment: suppose you have an ice block of 1 cubic meter, and you put that in a heated room; by applying a number of scientific laws you can almost perfectly predict how quickly this ice block will melt and how large the pool of water eventually will be; but then think about the reverse experiment: you start with a large pool of water in a room; you can formulate dozens or even hundreds of explanations of how that pool came about, of which only one is that of the experiment with the ice block. In other words: it’s nearly impossible to find out exactly what happened.

When I read this, I was initially very impressed: indeed, the dense veil that hangs over the past makes it almost impossible for a historian to reconstruct what really happened. But after some thought, I have to admit that I felt badly deceived, or better, that I was angry with myself that I had not seen it at once. Because the experiment of Taleb is of such simplicity that it is not realistic: from the experience of a historian we know that there have to be a lot more clues in the room than the simple pool of water: maybe there were still people in white lab coats running around indicating a scientific experiment, perhaps there were heat-convectors in the immediate vicinity, maybe in the puddle there still was the wooden pallet on which the ice block was transported, perhaps scientific reports surfaced in which the experiment was literally described, or perhaps there was a cleaning crew present of which some people had seen everything happen, etc. To keep it short: a really perfect reconstruction may not be easy, but there are always enough traces that provide an approximative, plausible explanation. And just that last thing, and the methodology that comes with it, is the work of the historian.

Another interesting aspect in this book is that Taleb gives many explanations why we do not see Black Swans coming, and that is also relevant to the work of the historian, because it shows where the pitfalls lie, the classic "fallacies" of which one half century ago the American historian D.H. Fischer gave an almost exhaustive list in his seminal work Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought. Taleb mainly focusses on psychological-mental aspects: our very human inclination, for example, to always assume that things will continue to go as they go now; we are mentally blind to the factor of change and chance in history. What is especially bad is that now we think we can predict the future better because of the flight science has taken and has brought more knowledge to the foreside. No wonder Taleb has a lot of criticism on econometrists and demographers who make predictions about economic growth, population trends and so on, which in retrospect almost always prove to be incorrect.

Now, Taleb blames this mainly on the use of wrong probability models (and the technicality of this makes the reading of the second half of this book so difficult). And that's where - according to me - he gets trapped in an own kind of contradiction. His book is full of historical examples of predictions and expectations that turned out to be wrong, and at the end of his book he argues for a form of stoicism because we cannot know which unexpected things can happen. But in other places he argues that we are able to demarcate an area (he calls it Mediocristan) where we are fairly safe, and thus also a very small area (Extremistan) where the Black Swans are active; and this knowledge, that demarcation, could protect us to a certain extent against huge mistakes.

I'm afraid that, in all its vagueness, with this Taleb once again opens the door to historians who imagine that, based on facts from the past, they can predict the future to some extent, and we are back to square one. The incomprehensible thing is that Taleb himself warnes against these kind of mistakes, mistakes that are inherent to mankind: "We do not spontaneously learn that we don’t learn that we don’t learn. The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don’t learn rules, just facts, and only facts. Metarules (such as the rule that we have a tendency to not learn rules) we don’t seem to be good at getting. We scorn the abstract; we scorn it with passion "(pp xxvi). It is a lesson an historian should always remember. ...more

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Apr 03, 2015 Jimmy Ele rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This book is like a nice cup of dark roasted coffee. A bit bitter for those who are unfamiliar with the Black Swan brand of uncertainty, yet disconcertingly alerting for those who have encountered this rare blend. The Black Swan glides through deep philosophical discussions and clever humor as effortlessly as its namesake. I was deeply enthralled by Nassim Nicholas Taleb's depth of erudition and wisdom concerning the philosophy of uncertainty.

The second edition of which I was privileged to read ...more

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Nov 29, 2007 David rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2007

Nassim Taleb's earlier book "Fooled by Randomness" was enormously successful - deservedly so, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this second book is a complete disappointment. Despite its length, it adds very little of interest to the material in the first book. Much of it is a rambling and indulgent rehash of ideas already developed adequately in the first book. If you are looking for fresh insight, spare your money.

Taleb is a very smart guy. In the first book, he wrote fluidly, clearly, without con ...more

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Aug 20, 2009 Lobstergirl rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: Joyce DeWitt

Shelves: economics, got-rid-of

This book "just wrote itself," Taleb says early on. I believe him. Rarely do you read anything so rambling, bouncing from anecdote to anecdote, with such wack-ass headings: Saw Another Red Mini! / Information is Bad for Knowledge / Don't Cross a River if It Is (on Average) Four Feet Deep / How to Look for Bird Poop / How Not to Be a Nerd / How Coffee Drinking Can Be Safe. On the internet this is called clickbait, and once you've clicked and realized how shallow the resulting story is, or how it ...more

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Apr 18, 2020 Owlseyes rated it really liked it

Shelves: we-concoct-an-explanation, psychologist-philip-tetlock, that-makes-it-appear-less-random, we-don-t-acknowledge-them, the-melting-ice-cube, and-more-predictable-than-it-was, is-covid19-blackest-black, unknown-unknown-are-black-swans, induction-problem, adventurer-giacomo-casanova

"As we travel more on this planet epidemics will be more acute--we will have a germ population dominated by a few numbers and the successful killer will spread vastly more effectively".

"September 11th was a black swan, this [Covid19] is a white swan"*.

I'm not sure I agree with Nassim. The Covid19 is globally massive, was predictable by some and, surely, "darker than Vantablack".

"Frustration that the pandemic we are living through was predictable and preventable,...”. Dominic Jermey of the Zool

...more

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About Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 21 years as a risk taker (quantitative trader) before becoming a flaneur and researcher in philosophical, mathematical and (mostly) practical problems with probability.  

Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human erro ...more

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“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?” and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.” — 367 likes

“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.” — 252 likes

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