Talk:Black swan/Archive1

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Do better

I will do better when I get around to finishing The Black Swan. It's a fucking doorstop of a book - and one you really shouldn't read on a plane. ^gnostic 16:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Err ... "history is actually unpredictable" = "that which has already happened cannot be predicted"? Shome mishtake shurely? 16:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Lol. I just lost my copy of it yesterday - on a plane. I hope I can get it back somehow, I still had 30 pages or so to read. But yeah, it's way too repetitive and reads more like a collection of essays - I often thought "OK, you've been making the same point for over twenty pages now, I kinda get it." Röstigraben (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No, it's just "the government knew about 9/11" type things are bullshit because it's just pure hindsight bias. Probably needs explained more thoroughly. I think it was Yudkowsky that expanded it to include the Challenger (unless Taleb also refers to it later than the point I'm up to), in that, yes, they knew the o-ring could be faulty but they also knew about 6000 other things that were equally faulty. What about the minor faults that people correct every day that save lives but we never know about it because it never went wrong. It's that sort of unpredictable, that trying to apply any form of cause and effect with hindsight is futile because you don't also take into account what there was evidence for but didn't actually happen. ^gnostic 13:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I found it very readable and a great book. Finished it in a few days.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 09:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The book is somewhat long and 'non-self-descriptive' (you know there will be still more examples later on in the book.' 82.198.250.70 (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Terror

I am terrified of Black Swans. I got attacked by a whole load of them as a child. I also hate horses and crustaceans. Just sayin... Ace ^{of Spades} 22:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I am with you on the horses. Crustaceans are food. Тy^Talk. 22:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Horses are evil. Crustaceans are the devils playthings. Ace ^{of Spades} 22:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I, too, have felt the wrath of the black swan as a child. RW got me over my fear of goats, however (attacked by one of those, too). Aboriginal Noise ^{Oh, you want to hit people with garbage cans?} 22:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

a profession which bases all its assumptions on the idea that extreme events will not occur

Really?! [1], [2], [3], [4] β=(X′X)⁻¹X′Y 00:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the correct profession there should read Wall Street shysters who want to hype their stock. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

described by The Times

I'll assume London and not New York? Also, a link would be awesomesauce. P-Foster_{The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Discuss.} 17:06, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Random passer-by

Just a random passer-by here, but the comment on predicting 9/11-like things and Hollywood doesn't see totally fair. Yes, if you predicted such an attack, it would no longer be like 9/11, since the shock was the major factor there; but that doesn't imply 'Things like 9/11 fundamentally/inherently cannot be predicted', or that attempting such predictions would be counterproductive. c.f. Cobra turning Paris to grey Goo in that G.I. Joe flick. 150.35.244.246 (talk) 06:58, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

No, it means if you "predict" a very specific highly unlikely event, then you still haven't successfully predicted a multitude of other very specific highly unlikely events. For instance, I predict I'm going to pull the two black aces, out of a deck of cards at random, I stake my entire life savings on that because I have done a lot of preparing for what two black aces look like, knowing how to spot when black aces are in the deck and so on. It's highly unlikely, and high impact and I have model that shows exactly how to predict two black aces being drawn from a deck. However, I draw a 3 of clubs and a queen of diamonds - a combination with equal probability, but hasn't been predicted in advance. How this sort of improbable things happen effect occurs in real life with stock market crashes and terrorist attacks is really the focus of the Black Swan problem. No matter how much time you plough into predicting very specific events, you will miss a myriad unknown unknowns that are all equally likely, which makes them counterproductive because it also blinds you to alternative possibilities simply because you didn't think them up. ^{d hominem} 09:16, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Still, specifically in this case another terrorist attack isn't THAT improbable given it already happened once. So trying to find out other weak points isn't ridiculous in itself. Obviously this won't protect anyone from Martian invasion or zombie plague, but then no one tries to, either. Government was just trying to patch revealed security vulnerabilities after the idea of Jihad in New York became sensible. And while hiring Hollywoods to brainstorm ridiculous scenarios may seem silly, the select few that were acted upon were (hopefully) not random but chosen as most desirable by terrorists. That's how brainstorming works, ideally. It still may or may not be a waste of time in utilitarian sense, but I wouldn't say it obviously is. 95.221.194.28 (talk) 22:08, 9 December 2014 (UTC)