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 everything about our
world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal
lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after
they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans
are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on
generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and
time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We
are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too
vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and
not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the
"impossible."
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we
know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the
irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to
surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book,
Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He
offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and
benefiting from them.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications "The Black
Swan" will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly
entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to
tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from
cognitive science to business to probability theory. "The Black
Swan" is a landmark book-itself a black swan.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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