| The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Unabridged) |  | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $20.99
You Save: $19.00 (48%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  319 reviews
Media: Audio Download
ASIN: B000VXBVN6
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. Engaging and enlightening, The Black Swan is a book that may change the way you think about the world, a book that Chris Anderson calls, "a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature." See Anderson's entire guest review below.
Guest Reviewer: Chris Anderson
 Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.
Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it's something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.
The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.
Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."
In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature. --Chris Anderson
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 314 more reviews...
 Disaster Planning for Black Swans August 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have found Mr. Taleb's book to be a very interesting and thought provoking read. As an experienced emergency management professional and instructor, I find it calls into question the whole process of risk and hazard analysis. While the book is certainly intellectually stimulating and should cause one to be very careful with planning assumptions, I question its value in any direct application. While looking in the rear view mirror we don't know how many Black Swan's were prevented by well conducted risk and hazard analyses based on historical occurrences. As Mr. Taleb points out, history has overlooked the successful interventions and un-occurred disasters.
 Nothing useful that anyone in a scientific field would benefit from August 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Talebs point is painfully simple. For some reason he seems to think that it is very unique and it is almost laughable that he thinks people in academia are so near sighted as to not realize much of what he presents.
He fails to provide any new model for evaluating risk... It's obvious that we can't predict the future, yes markets could collapse if a nuke hit america... or some other "Black Swan" occurrence happened. But the fact is we can't really practically use any of these events to model risk.
One example I found to be pretty stupid was when he talked about the banking crisis (where South American countries all simultaneously defaulted on their loans) ... and implied that this meant that "bankers were not conservative". His basic vice is that many strategies produce very little volatility yet still contain chaotic possibility of an extremely large loss. Unfortunately he never offered a practical alternative to what conservative should be defined as. Humans have limited tools to evaluate risk, I think everyone realizes that our models aren't perfect (yet unfortunately Taleb seems to think that he is the only one that has had this insight). This pattern occurs throughout the book -- Taleb chastising people for wrongly evaluating future occurrences without offering any practical alternative.
I didn't buy a book simply be told that ... "well...humans aren't oracles they can't predict stuff...sometimes crazy stuff goes down... here are some examples... oh yeah and some advice: Be open minded"... which in essence is what this book wastes 400 pages doing.
 A philosophy from statistics August 14, 2008
This is a very fun book to read. Taleb is one of those polymath writers who are totally unashamed to bloviate and utterly convinced he's right (and is willing to call Nobel laureates frauds!). And I give him credit for making statistics engaging to read and a philosophy to boot.
My one criticism is his chapter on narrative fallacies. One of Taleb's arguments is that we should avoid seeing patterns in the past and that the past is almost entirely unexplainable and irreducible with respect to causation. He then applies this to history. I think Taleb's dead wrong here. It is absurd to think of history without thinking about causation and narrative. History is not naked chronology, as Taleb seems to think, but understanding reasons, causes. People don't want to know what happened, but why it happened. This is a valid question! IMHO, Taleb's argument about randomness and skepticism applies only to economic variables. And it's a good point. In sum, I thought Taleb's romp through the world of economics and forecasting was fun and thought-provoking!
Shoot the editor August 12, 2008
The obvious premises of this book could have been related in 50 pages or less. I agree with those who commented that the author is self-engrossed. I've never wanted to skim-read a book more than this one.
 useless pages are more than 85% of the book August 3, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought the book because it is on best selling list, 4 stars and an interesting topic. However, quite a disappoinment. The black swan idea is quite refreshing but it is revealed completed in the first 20 pages. The rest are just repeative garbage.
I guess the author needs to make a living too and he is obviously paid by the number of pages. He simply turned a good article into a over-weight book.
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 - RailroadBookstore.com
| |
