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. In this revelatory book, Taleb
explains everything we know about what we don't know, and this
second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay,
"On Robustness and Fragility," which offers tools to navigate and
exploit a Black Swan world.
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.
Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb
"The most prophetic voice of all.""--GQ"
" "
Praise for "The Black Swan"
" A book] that altered modern thinking."--"The Times" (London)
"A masterpiece."--Chris Anderson, editor in chief of "Wired,
"author of" The Long Tail"
" "
"Idiosyncratically brilliant."--Niall Ferguson, "Los Angeles
Times"
" "
""The Black Swan" changed my view of how the world works."--Daniel
Kahneman, Nobel laureate
" Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as
it does to Michel de Montaigne. . . . We eagerly romp with him
through the follies of confirmation bias and] narrative
fallacy.""--The Wall Street Journal"
" "
"Hugely enjoyable--compelling . . . easy to dip into."--"Financial
Times"
" "
"Engaging . . . "The Black Swan" has appealing cheek and admirable
ambition.""--The New York Times Book Review"
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