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If you’ve heard of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan then you’ve heard the story. Before Australia was discovered it was thought that all swans were white and then a black swan was not only spotted in Australia but revealed to be the norm in that portion of the globe. This is of course the simplified version of the premise of Taleb’s book. You see “black swan events” have three main attributes they are “unpredictability, consequences, and retrospective explainability” (Taleb 164). Of course the consequences for a true black swan event need to be much greater than those involved with the discovery of a different hue of swan. Black swan events as exemplified in the book can range from the invention of the Internet, the stock market crash of 1987 (which actually catapulted Taleb to his current status), to September 11th. These events came out of nowhere and had a huge impact on society and after the fact their occurrence was explained in a multitude of ways.
One of the most interesting points that Taleb makes is our innate desire to make connections. The human mind enjoys being able to form a coherent narrative. This explains why when we are allowed perspective (let’s say in history books or a news anchor telling the days events) we like to make it seem like there were simple causes that led to the sometimes felicitous, sometimes monstrous events in our history.
However, all our hindsight does not prepare us for the future and black swan events will continue to happen and continue to have the same amount of impact. What Taleb seems to be calling on us to do is to keep our eyes open to the fact that these events arise out of the realm of the unpredictable (as the entirety of the future really is). As he tells us in his conclusion, “I worry less about advertised and sensational risk, more about more vicious hidden ones” (296). The events that really need to be of concern are not those that have already happened but those that could arise out and unforeseen place.
I was surprised by the happy feeling that I took away from this book considering the central idea that none of us can predict or really avoid the cataclysmic events that in many ways drive our history. I think this was partially the author’s intention. Even though there are huge events out there just waiting to shake the way we think and live there is also very little that can be done about them. So we can all live our lives but at the same time not fall into the deceptive ludic fallacies (basing our perception of chance on studies developed in controlled environments) that we may have let run them in the past.
From a marketing perspective (as this is “Marketing Conversation” I am writing for). I would say that his fantastical author Yevegenia Krasnova is one of the more telling characters of the book. (One of the funnier moments of this book is a foot note in which he reveals her existence being fictional through a footnote on page 26 apologizing to those readers who wasted their time Googling her – I blushed.) Yevegenia has published two books by the end of the novel, one an out of the blue success and the other and out of the blue failure. Both are black swans.
What does this tell us? As much hype is surrounded by something, as much as we would love to see certain things succeed while others fail in the end it is almost entirely out of our hands. I mean, just cruise around and look at some of the most popular sites on the internet…. Who would have thought people would spend hours of their life looking at cutesy kittens? But they do and now someone is making a living putting together cutesy kitty pictures for mass consumption.
As Taleb points out in his acknowledgements he enjoyed writing this book. This is clear from the amount of fun that a person with an open mind can have while reading this book (witty glossary and all). It is not a literary masterpiece. It is more like taking a trip into somebody’s train of thought and having quite a good time of it. There are countless anecdotes (some of which will make you giggle, other which will make you sneer in delight at all your silly probability professors and their very sensible nonsensical theories). The truth is this book will probably not shake you at your core but it will probably get you to think twice before running for trains. The moment you stop running for trains is the moment you start to take a very elegant look at your life’s destiny. As Taleb writes “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” (297).
I’d recommend picking up the book and perusing through the first chapter or two. If you like Taleb’s very casual writing style you will definitely enjoy taking the time to finish it. If it frustrates you in anyway, just put it down and remember to keep your eyes peeled for everything you can’t see.
Interestingly I stumbled across the same black swan dialectic in J.L. Austin’s monumental work How to Do Things With Words (page 144, Second edition, Harvard University Press).
Filed under: Abraham Harrison LLC, Book Reports, Book Reviews
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