Book Review - The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

I had heard about the book The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb from a couple of places before my father picked it up and read it. I remember him telling me about it and finding the premise interesting. Several of the people who saw me with the book or heard the title asked me if it was the same as the movie with the same title - the one with Natalie Portman about the ballerina. It is not. The Black Swan is a non-fiction book talking about the impact of the highly improbable. It is part science, part philosophy, and part common sense. It was an enjoyable read, if a little slow to get through. This was not due to the nature of the prose, but the simply the type of book it is. It is not a novel and so cannot be read like one. You will need to focus on the material, but I think most will find it interesting, engaging, and entertaining. Teleb's style in this book is similar to a stream of consciousness narrative (although he would say it is decidedly not so). He moves smoothly between parts of his topic, interjecting personal events, and even the occasional jab at others.

Main Points: As this book is non-fiction, and does not contain a narrative, I had to change the label for this portion of the review. Taleb's ideas are pretty straightforward, but do require some additional contemplation to describe. Perhaps the best was to introduce it is to use his own example for the title. For centuries Europeans had only seen white swans. Black swans did not exist - so much so that they were not even thought of. Then the ornithological world was blown away with the discovery of black swans in Australia. Suddenly something inconceivable was standing there defying all previous knowledge. Granted, the discovery of black swans did not impact the world to any great extent in the long run (or even the short), but the point remains that there are events that do not forecast themselves, have no precedent, and are highly improbable that happen all the time. Sometimes these extreme events have little effect, like the discovery of the actual black swan, but many times these events have very, very, very large effects. The difficulty of these events is that our brains our not wired to naturally consider them, or are even wire to try to block them. Taleb goes on to talk about how we should consider things based on the idea of highly improbable, high impact events. He demonstrates that there are two different kinds of randomness. He refers to them as Mediocristan and Extremistan. In Mediocristan randomness is constrained - most often by physical properties. In Exteristan randomness has no bounds - this is the realm of black swan events. For an example, take 1000 people. Find the average height. Even if the tallest or shortest person of all time was in the mix the difference between them and the next is not going to impact the average to very much. Now take the same 1000 people and figure out the average yearly earnings. If one of those people is Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs the average is going to have a large effect on the average to to point of removing any kind of validity from the results. The challenge is identifying what elements of life exist in Mediocristan and which are located in Extremistan. He points out that many in economics believe their field is planted in Mediocristan, limited by scientific laws and limitations. However, we have seen in the last decade that the economy is volatile and ripe for black swans. Often the reason we don't suspect black swans is because they are unpredictable. Take the example of the turkey. Everyday for 1000 days the turkey is fed and cared for. On the thousandth day the turkey, looking back on 1000 cases of data, has no reason to suspect that anything else is going to happen in its life beyond what has occurred - consistently - for the last 1000 days. However, day 1001 is the day before Thanksgiving and so the turkey's life is brought to a sudden, unpredictable end. Unpredictable at least for the turkey. Taleb's discussion flows well and leads through many different elements of identifying Extremistan country, how we persuade ourselves that black swans are not possible, and the common misconceptions about randomness and its impact. I read the 2nd addition which included some useful (and entertaining) footnotes and an essay he wrote three years after the 1st edition was published discussing some of the topic in greater detail.

Personal favorites: Taleb's logic, thoughts, and discussion were laid out very well and were easy to follow. While still a book with heavy doses of logic and philosophy it was entertaining to read as Taleb shares many personal insights which give the book a very personal feel. It was a very interesting read that exposed me to some excellent ideas which are useful in assessing different aspects of knowledge, learning, finances, and especially projections and models. As someone who loves to analysis data and look for patterns, it reminded me that anytime you are dealing with any kind of social interaction, or system controlled by humans, you are in black swan country and you have to consider that there might be one just over the next hill. Taleb makes it clear that he has no projections, will never have projections, and there is no permanent "cure" for black swans. However, knowing that there might be one often times gives you the tools to plan for the "impact of the highly improbable."

Considerations: the book is non-fiction and so has to be read as such. I would be lucky to get through thirty pages a day on a 45 minute commute. My normal reading speed for novels is often closer to 80 pages an hour. It took quite a while to get through it (compared to most other books), but it was enjoyable while I was reading it.

It was a good book and I enjoyed it. It's one that I'll probably have to go through a few times to solidify the ideas and be better at implementing them. I feel like my field is prone to black swans (college campuses, education, student development) but I know that such ideas are not discussed. I'm looking forward to seeing how the ideas Taleb presents can be applied. The total length 300 pages with the essay adding another 72 pages.