Black Swan Event
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A Black Swan Event is a highly improbable event with a massive impact that results in false memory (where we concoct an event explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable than it was).
- Context:
- It can range from being a Negative Black Swan Event to being a Positive Black Swan Event.
- …
- Example(s):
- a One-in-a-Thousand-Year Event, such as a One-in-a-Thousand-Year Tsunami.
- 2008_Mortgage Collapse.
- 2009_Euro Crisis.
- …
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Societal Shock, Catastrophic Failure, Open World Assumption, Black Swan, Hindsight, Inductive Categorical Inference, Outlier.
References
2014
- (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/black_swan_theory Retrieved:2014-11-17.
- The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:
- The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.
- The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).
- The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs.
- Unlike the earlier philosophical “black swan problem", the "black swan theory" refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences. More technically, in the scientific monograph Lectures on Probability and Risk in the Real World: Fat Tails (Volume 1), Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as "stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability". [1]
- The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
2007
- (Taleb, 2007) ⇒ Nassim Taleb. (2007). “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable." Random House Publishing Group. ISBN:9781588365835
- QUOTE: 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.
2000
- (Joy, 2000) ⇒ Bill Joy. (2000). “Why the Future Doesn't Need Us.” In: Wired Magazine, 8.04