Comments on: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan’

By: duşakabin

duşakabin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:49:09 +0000

Thanks

By: bursa evden eve nakliyat

bursa evden eve nakliyat — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:13:22 +0000

paylaşım için teşekür ederim..

By: dekorasyon

dekorasyon — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:09:17 +0000

thanks you

By: boğaz turları

boğaz turları — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:03:13 +0000

thankss..

By: çeviri ofisi

çeviri ofisi — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:21:14 +0000

thanks

By: göğüs büyütücü

göğüs büyütücü — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:25:27 +0000

thanks

By: web tasarım

web tasarım — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 07:17:30 +0000

thanks

By: lpg

lpg — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:06:28 +0000

thanks

By: otomatik kapi

otomatik kapi — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:22:15 +0000

thanks

By: djb-PhD

djb-PhD — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:15:48 +0000

You know, I am in the middle of reading this book, in order to recognize a black swan (so as to protect yourself or company) I find it to be common sense to have a backup plan. Example when your auto breaksdown, where do you go to fix it? heart attack where do you go? If I did not read books or newspapers how would I know of these things. How do you think the author found out all this information, did he not read books and question? I think we are giving him too much credit. To me intelligence is always to question and to look at the entire picture.
In our nation right now we realized we are greedy and selfish and this is our result. Our inner ego’s got in the way and now eveyrone is scrambling to blame others for all the mistakes. Wake up and smell the coffee. Let’s fix it and stop blamming everyone, grow up.

By: shariq

shariq — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:10:45 +0000

Soru, I agree with what you said. Taleb does talk about the incentives for Bankers to continue to continue to take these risks because their yearly bonuses were determined by annual profits rather than the possibility of huge losses. Also, the Chris Dillow post that Matt Yglesias links too makes an interesting point about what Taleb is saying isn’t necessarily that profound but bankers are really that stupid/greedy.

Riz, I saw that newsnight clip after someone I had recommended the book to said they had seen him on Newsnight. As you say, he’s clearly reluctant to make predictions. Do you think its still worth reading fooled by randomness having read the black swan first?

By: Riz

Riz — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:26:53 +0000

Nice overview Shariq. Taleb is a great independent thinker and his books, or at least his freely available articles and interviews are essential for broadening one’s mind. He suffers from accusations of arrogance but I don’t think his books suffered for it – read Black Swan a few months ago and am currently reading Fooled By Randomness. As you say, Taleb changes the way you think, and that his ideas are not necessarily new (as many critics like to point out) is not the point. It is that they are important ideas and who better to promote them than someone who is willing to stand on the top of a mountain and keep on shouting and shouting until people pay attention. I heard his fund has had some rough times in the past, but this year has been pretty good (up 50% http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aDVgqxiT9RSg&refer=us).

You can see his interview on Newsnight on Youtube. It’s pretty funny because no one is really listening to Taleb seriously, and he end up doing what he loathes: giving a ‘forecast’ of where he thinks we are in the crisis, although I’m sure he doesn’t believe one bit in his own answer.

By: soru

soru — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:05:57 +0000

‘In fact his main argument is to acknowledge the risk of black swans when taking risks’

Which is all very well, and I appreciate he has a book to sell so needs to pretend whatever he wrote ~3 years ago is a reaction to this weeks headlines, but that really lets the bankers off the hook way too much.

You wouldn’t accept that excuse from a local council: ‘yes, we planned for every forseeable contingency with lots of margins, but then in a completely unpredictable black swan event, suddenly all this white stuff started falling from ths sky…’

Or ‘yes, I planned to make it home on time, darling, but in a completely unpredictable black swan event, I met my mates down the pub, got bladdered and went to a strip club…’

9/11 was a genuine black swan, something pretty much unprecedented (an order of magnitude bigger than any previous terrorism-style attack) that challenged existing theories. This wasn’t, it’s just a recession, not an Excession.

Handing out massive amounts of self-certified 100%+ mortgages in a housing bubble would hardly count as unpredictable the first time it happened. Given that the same scenario, with minor variations, has panned out about every decade or so all the way back to the South Sea bubble and Tulipmania, you’d have to be a goldfish with a 7 second memory to plausibly claim surprise as you trousered the last 9 years bonuses you got for betting it wouldn’t happen _that_ year.

By: Shariq

Shariq — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:48:25 +0000

Douglas, thanks for dropping a comment. Soru, I don’t think Taleb has a foolproof plan to get rid of black swans. In fact his main argument is to acknowledge the risk of black swans when taking risks. Interestingly he also talks about trying to be exposed to as many positive black swans as possible i.e those events such as new inventions, books, music which have the potential to become huge.

Anyways, both of you should definitely check out the Appleyard profile.

By: soru

soru — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:37:30 +0000

‘despite what the statistics said, the risks which banks were taking on were unsustainable because they were wide open to being hit by a black swan’

Given that a joke exists that some pundits have predicted 16 of the last 4 crashes, surely the credit crunch is the precise opposite of a black swan?

More like a grey pigeon – ubiquitous, annoying and unpleasant, but you have to be a bit sceptical about anyone who claims they have a foolproof plan to get rid of them.

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:33:35 +0000

shariq,

Sorry, I just missed it !

Having read it, it does rather reinforce my own thoughts ( or prejudices ) about the social sciences in that they have little or no predictive value.

By: shariq

shariq — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:50:11 +0000

Just out of curiosity did anyone even read this? I don’t mind people not commenting but just for my information it would be useful to know. Also, if you didn’t read it, was the excerpt too short or were you just not interested. Any feedback would be appreciated.