![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is ridiculous. It is an attempt to pretend that this Taleb character invented the concept of the Black Swan fallacy. He, or whoever wrote it for him, should be damned well ashamed of themselves for this pathetic behaviour. I am going to delete the whole page unless someone sorts it out. Aredbeardeddwarf ( talk) 20:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The title section gives a summary of Taleb's theory (ideas?) that doesn't seem to rest on any actual statements, and seems to make sloppy use of otherwise rigorous terms, more specifically:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.247.118.230 ( talk) 10:32, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
The wording of this section is confusing - the sentence about 9/11 as well as the inferred link to Australia don't flow.
How can 9-11 be a Black Swan event unless the WTC bombing in 1993 is also a Black Swan event? -- But if there are two, then neither is a Black Swan. Tobyw ( talk) 16:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
References
At the risk of enduring flames, I've re-started the criticism section with re-worked verbiage from a prior edit that was thrown out as not-notable. From where I sit, Taleb's work is right at the core of ongoing arguments (see quasi-empiricism in mathematics), yet it brings a newer, and interesting, viewpoint to the debate. That the earlier entry referenced Amazon is not grounds for dismissal. The exodus of some learned social scientists from the academic environment so that they can apply their theories in the modern milieu founded upon the 'web' (Amazon, Google, etc.), with its ever-growing support for experiments across time and space, is one example that Taleb's work is of importance to the discussion. Besides, the Ludic fallacy is real. Let's apply it to proof and model theoretic issues, too. jmswtlk 00:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
The Criticism section is crap. It's one sentence, which doesn't actually offer any criticism, and it has a disclaimer. — Ashley Y 05:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if any of this sounds insulting, but this page does a poor job of describing what NNT outlined. It makes me question whether anyone working on this page actually read the book.
Perhaps you could supply an example of a Black Swan event 74.66.228.167 ( talk) 22:36, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I wonder how far this is related to the Knightian uncertainty. Any suggestions?
BS theory is about extreme events. Indeed, many of these are hard to measure. Taleb talks much about our lack of knowledge which is partly about the unmeasurable. See also Unknown unknown whihc is also a term Taleb uses. Yechezkel Zilber ( talk) 21:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
It is important to note that Taleb's BlackSwan is different from the "black swan" of philosophy. It has an impact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.44.56.228 ( talk) 18:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Is Taleb's Black Swan just another version of Chaos Theory? Or are chaotic events and knightian events just extremes of the overarching Black Swan Theory? Anyone's thoughts? Ssullman999 ( talk) 19:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Did Taleb originate the black swan theory (as applied to high impact low probability events that cause paradigm shifts) or did somebody else? I was under the impression that his book was not the first one to come up with this theory (since it is a core concept of risk management). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cowbert ( talk • contribs) 15:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The Black Swan is not to be confused with "fat tails". Taleb's three attributes have no known precedent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.209.131.192 ( talk) 17:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The Black swan is a metaphor not a theory. The page should be renamed to The Black Swan.
I never read The Black Swan but Taleb describes it in great detail in his previous book Fooled by Randomness which I did read. Which doesn't really answer the question but dates the concept back at least 6 years or so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.162.70 ( talk) 05:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
In addition to sources that are cited in the article, there is one more. Plotinus writes in his Enneades (Second Ennead, Sixth Tractate [1]) about qualities that are constitutive or accidental for something. He says there: "In the swan the whiteness is not constitutive since a swan need not be white". Apparently, Plotinus did not assume that all swans are white! Sdraganov ( talk) 21:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Could this be merged with the book he wrote about black swan theory? TallNapoleon ( talk) 08:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Hello. Merging the two would not be adequate. The "Black Swan Theory" and The Black Swan Book are different items. The book is not technical (it is a literary essay); the theory is more scientifically outlined in other writings such as "the fourth quadrant". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.248.29 ( talk) 10:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
I am against merging --The Black Swan events are part of the vocabulary. Taleb does not call it "theory" but BLACK SWAN EVENT. So I suggest changing names. NewEconomist ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC).
Could someone please rewrite this sentence so it's not hidden in a cloud of unanticipated poultry metaphor?
I'd be grateful. 137.195.68.169 ( talk) 16:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Taleb uses an anecdote regarding the life of a turkey raised for slaughter to explain how the expectations of probability based upon day to day anecdotal experience can create a fallacy that will lead us into events that go horribly awry. I suggest just quoting that section of The Black Swan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.59.154 ( talk) 03:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
This idea is primarily an issue for active investors. For the passive investor who holds their index portfolio for a risk-appropriate period of time, there are no black swans.
When Eugene Fama was asked to comment on the Black Swan, he stated, "Half of my 1964 Ph.D. thesis is tests of market efficiency, and the other half is a detailed examination of the distribution of stock returns. Mandelbrot is right. The distribution is fat-tailed relative to the normal distribution. In other words, extreme returns occur much more often than would be expected if returns were normal.
There was lots of interest in this issue for about ten years. Then academics lost interest. The reason is that most of what we do in terms of portfolio theory and models of risk and expected return works for Mandelbrot's stable distribution class, as well as for the normal distribution (which is in fact a member of the stable class). For passive investors, none of this matters, beyond being aware that outlier returns are more common than would be expected if return distributions were normal.
For other applications, however, the difference can be critical. Risk management by financial institutions is a good example. For example, portfolio insurance, which was the rage in the early 1980s, bombed in the crash of October 1987, because this was an event that was inconceivable in their normality based return model. The normality assumption is also likely to be a serious problem in various kinds of derivatives, where lots of the price is due to the probability of extreme events. For example, news story accounts suggest that AIG blew up because its risk model for credit default swaps did not properly account for outlier events. See Fama/French Forum.
As I noted in the External Links section, histograms of index portfolios over appropriate holding periods do not show black swan events. See Simulated Passive Investor Experiences.
This is important data relative to Taleb's claims that investors should be concerned over such events. Rare events like these balance out over time and are more likely to be positive than negative. The worst one month return for the S&P 500 occurred on 9/31 and was -29.74%, while the best one month return occurred on 4/33, and it was 42.55%. See Eight One Years of Monthly Rolling Data, see S&P 500, page 21.
Mark Hebner 76.175.202.232 ( talk) 02:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Markhebner ( talk • contribs) 02:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
this section was removed, and I do not understand why. the two fold problem is a good distinction. Yechezkel Zilber ( talk) 21:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Taleb's problem is about epistemic limitations in some parts of the areas covered in decision making. These limitations are twofold: philosophical (mathematical) and empirical (human known epistemic biases). The philosophical problem is about the decrease in knowledge when it comes to rare events as these are not visible in past samples and therefore require a strong a priori, or what one can call an extrapolating theory ; accordingly events depends more and more on theories when their probability is small. In the fourth quadrant, knowledge is both uncertain and consequences are large, requiring more robustness.
In the prefix of this article, it notes that Black Swan Theory should be capitalized as a specific concept. Yet the article itself is simply Black swan theory. Should the article be fully capitalized? dimo414 ( talk) 06:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
There's no reason "black swan theory" or "theory of black swan events" should be capitalized. English doesn't work that way. We don't capitalize anything that sounds important. -- Tysto ( talk) 02:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
If not more than one example can be found for a black swan event, this page should surely be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.84.88 ( talk) 13:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
38.121.134.234 ( talk) 16:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC) Precisely my point. What are the examples? An Earthquake in Japan? Are you kidding me? Taleb's own examples are even stupider. Harry Potter? Viagra? Seriously. Anyone thinking 9/11 was inherently unpredictable should read this: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/15/opinion/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-20101015 Lift your game people. You've been taken for a ride.
The lone example currently given is not valid: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. John Kay said it was not a Black Swan:
Magnitude 9.0 earthquakes are not unprecedented:
- Ac44ck ( talk) 23:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Finally some sanity prevails here. But alas we have NO examples now. What a tragedy! —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
38.121.134.234 (
talk)
12:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
I like the example given on the following post -
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-28-2011-real-black-real-swan.html
167.30.73.70 (
talk)
04:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
IMHO this whole theory is flawed. 1) Black swans may be rare but they don't cause a great (or any?) change in the general swan population. 2) Numerous other phrases and similes already exist which do actually make sense. 3) Defining any human-driven event as completely unpredictable is foolish and natural events will all have precedent.
There appears to be quite a bit of discussion as to whether this article is about a theory or not. Can I propose a name change to "Black Swan (unpredictable event)" and changing the first three paragraphs to remove references to "theory". Edratzer ( talk) 18:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
There appears to be quite a bit of discussion as to whether this article is about a theory or not. Can I propose a name change to "Black Swan (unpredictable event)" and changing the first three paragraphs to remove references to "theory". Edratzer ( talk) 18:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The philosopher Edna Ullmann-Margalit detected an inconsistency in this book and asked me to justify the use of the precise metaphor of a Black Swan to describe the unknown, the abstract, and imprecise uncertain—white ravens, pink elephants... Indeed, she caught me red handed. There is a contradiction; this book is a story, and I prefer to use stories and vignettes to illustrate our gullibility about stories and our preference for the dangerous compression of narratives... The metaphor of the black swan is not at all a modern one—contrary to its usual attribution to Popper, Mill, Hume, and others. I selected it because it corresponds to the ancient idea of a “rare bird.” The Latin poet Juvenal refers to a “bird as rare as the black swan”...
— Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2010). The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility. Random House. p. 31. ISBN 9780679604181. LCCN 2010292618.
I can predict when an author is about to plagiarize me, and poorly so when he writes that Taleb “popularized” the theory of Black Swan events.
— Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2010). The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms. Random House. p. 48. ISBN 9780679643685. LCCN 2010036866.
Black Swan events by token of the theory outside the present verification of the author of the theory:
Wikipedia rejects attempts to introduce these events on its page «Black swan theory» Black swan theory. In returned notations it is that only a verifiable and introduced reliable source would permit the entry within the Wikipedia article. -- Laurencebeck ( talk) 03:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Surely the must be better examples of Black Swans than these SAP-related system failures. Wikifier ( talk) 02:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
The whole page reads like an extended advertisement for Taleb's books. Did he perhaps write the whole page himself? Or maybe some PR flack for his publisher wrote it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.30.132 ( talk) 21:13, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
It seems like an attempt to force the phrase into the common vernacular, using Wikipedia as the vehicle for that effort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.227.246 ( talk) 19:01, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Any attempts at changes are reverted. Genetikbliss ( talk) 02:50, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
The author of this book seems to have made some pretty bold claims about the nature of history and predictive models. Surely someone has responded, or otherwise, why not? Did the book have any impact at all? If not it might not be notable enough to justify the article's existence. 138.16.21.199 ( talk) 15:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Considering the pictures don't actually relate to the article, maybe it would be more fitting to just include the first picture? Archlinux ( talk) 03:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:09, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 05:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Would it be possible to link to an archive of the article, or ask around for a copy, instead of deleting the content outright? Vecr ( talk) 15:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This is ridiculous. It is an attempt to pretend that this Taleb character invented the concept of the Black Swan fallacy. He, or whoever wrote it for him, should be damned well ashamed of themselves for this pathetic behaviour. I am going to delete the whole page unless someone sorts it out. Aredbeardeddwarf ( talk) 20:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The title section gives a summary of Taleb's theory (ideas?) that doesn't seem to rest on any actual statements, and seems to make sloppy use of otherwise rigorous terms, more specifically:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.247.118.230 ( talk) 10:32, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
The wording of this section is confusing - the sentence about 9/11 as well as the inferred link to Australia don't flow.
How can 9-11 be a Black Swan event unless the WTC bombing in 1993 is also a Black Swan event? -- But if there are two, then neither is a Black Swan. Tobyw ( talk) 16:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
References
At the risk of enduring flames, I've re-started the criticism section with re-worked verbiage from a prior edit that was thrown out as not-notable. From where I sit, Taleb's work is right at the core of ongoing arguments (see quasi-empiricism in mathematics), yet it brings a newer, and interesting, viewpoint to the debate. That the earlier entry referenced Amazon is not grounds for dismissal. The exodus of some learned social scientists from the academic environment so that they can apply their theories in the modern milieu founded upon the 'web' (Amazon, Google, etc.), with its ever-growing support for experiments across time and space, is one example that Taleb's work is of importance to the discussion. Besides, the Ludic fallacy is real. Let's apply it to proof and model theoretic issues, too. jmswtlk 00:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
The Criticism section is crap. It's one sentence, which doesn't actually offer any criticism, and it has a disclaimer. — Ashley Y 05:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if any of this sounds insulting, but this page does a poor job of describing what NNT outlined. It makes me question whether anyone working on this page actually read the book.
Perhaps you could supply an example of a Black Swan event 74.66.228.167 ( talk) 22:36, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
I wonder how far this is related to the Knightian uncertainty. Any suggestions?
BS theory is about extreme events. Indeed, many of these are hard to measure. Taleb talks much about our lack of knowledge which is partly about the unmeasurable. See also Unknown unknown whihc is also a term Taleb uses. Yechezkel Zilber ( talk) 21:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
It is important to note that Taleb's BlackSwan is different from the "black swan" of philosophy. It has an impact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.44.56.228 ( talk) 18:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Is Taleb's Black Swan just another version of Chaos Theory? Or are chaotic events and knightian events just extremes of the overarching Black Swan Theory? Anyone's thoughts? Ssullman999 ( talk) 19:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Did Taleb originate the black swan theory (as applied to high impact low probability events that cause paradigm shifts) or did somebody else? I was under the impression that his book was not the first one to come up with this theory (since it is a core concept of risk management). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cowbert ( talk • contribs) 15:51, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The Black Swan is not to be confused with "fat tails". Taleb's three attributes have no known precedent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.209.131.192 ( talk) 17:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
The Black swan is a metaphor not a theory. The page should be renamed to The Black Swan.
I never read The Black Swan but Taleb describes it in great detail in his previous book Fooled by Randomness which I did read. Which doesn't really answer the question but dates the concept back at least 6 years or so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.162.70 ( talk) 05:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
In addition to sources that are cited in the article, there is one more. Plotinus writes in his Enneades (Second Ennead, Sixth Tractate [1]) about qualities that are constitutive or accidental for something. He says there: "In the swan the whiteness is not constitutive since a swan need not be white". Apparently, Plotinus did not assume that all swans are white! Sdraganov ( talk) 21:28, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Could this be merged with the book he wrote about black swan theory? TallNapoleon ( talk) 08:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Hello. Merging the two would not be adequate. The "Black Swan Theory" and The Black Swan Book are different items. The book is not technical (it is a literary essay); the theory is more scientifically outlined in other writings such as "the fourth quadrant". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.248.29 ( talk) 10:11, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
I am against merging --The Black Swan events are part of the vocabulary. Taleb does not call it "theory" but BLACK SWAN EVENT. So I suggest changing names. NewEconomist ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:46, 27 August 2009 (UTC).
Could someone please rewrite this sentence so it's not hidden in a cloud of unanticipated poultry metaphor?
I'd be grateful. 137.195.68.169 ( talk) 16:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Taleb uses an anecdote regarding the life of a turkey raised for slaughter to explain how the expectations of probability based upon day to day anecdotal experience can create a fallacy that will lead us into events that go horribly awry. I suggest just quoting that section of The Black Swan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.162.59.154 ( talk) 03:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
This idea is primarily an issue for active investors. For the passive investor who holds their index portfolio for a risk-appropriate period of time, there are no black swans.
When Eugene Fama was asked to comment on the Black Swan, he stated, "Half of my 1964 Ph.D. thesis is tests of market efficiency, and the other half is a detailed examination of the distribution of stock returns. Mandelbrot is right. The distribution is fat-tailed relative to the normal distribution. In other words, extreme returns occur much more often than would be expected if returns were normal.
There was lots of interest in this issue for about ten years. Then academics lost interest. The reason is that most of what we do in terms of portfolio theory and models of risk and expected return works for Mandelbrot's stable distribution class, as well as for the normal distribution (which is in fact a member of the stable class). For passive investors, none of this matters, beyond being aware that outlier returns are more common than would be expected if return distributions were normal.
For other applications, however, the difference can be critical. Risk management by financial institutions is a good example. For example, portfolio insurance, which was the rage in the early 1980s, bombed in the crash of October 1987, because this was an event that was inconceivable in their normality based return model. The normality assumption is also likely to be a serious problem in various kinds of derivatives, where lots of the price is due to the probability of extreme events. For example, news story accounts suggest that AIG blew up because its risk model for credit default swaps did not properly account for outlier events. See Fama/French Forum.
As I noted in the External Links section, histograms of index portfolios over appropriate holding periods do not show black swan events. See Simulated Passive Investor Experiences.
This is important data relative to Taleb's claims that investors should be concerned over such events. Rare events like these balance out over time and are more likely to be positive than negative. The worst one month return for the S&P 500 occurred on 9/31 and was -29.74%, while the best one month return occurred on 4/33, and it was 42.55%. See Eight One Years of Monthly Rolling Data, see S&P 500, page 21.
Mark Hebner 76.175.202.232 ( talk) 02:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Markhebner ( talk • contribs) 02:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
this section was removed, and I do not understand why. the two fold problem is a good distinction. Yechezkel Zilber ( talk) 21:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Taleb's problem is about epistemic limitations in some parts of the areas covered in decision making. These limitations are twofold: philosophical (mathematical) and empirical (human known epistemic biases). The philosophical problem is about the decrease in knowledge when it comes to rare events as these are not visible in past samples and therefore require a strong a priori, or what one can call an extrapolating theory ; accordingly events depends more and more on theories when their probability is small. In the fourth quadrant, knowledge is both uncertain and consequences are large, requiring more robustness.
In the prefix of this article, it notes that Black Swan Theory should be capitalized as a specific concept. Yet the article itself is simply Black swan theory. Should the article be fully capitalized? dimo414 ( talk) 06:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
There's no reason "black swan theory" or "theory of black swan events" should be capitalized. English doesn't work that way. We don't capitalize anything that sounds important. -- Tysto ( talk) 02:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
If not more than one example can be found for a black swan event, this page should surely be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.84.88 ( talk) 13:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
38.121.134.234 ( talk) 16:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC) Precisely my point. What are the examples? An Earthquake in Japan? Are you kidding me? Taleb's own examples are even stupider. Harry Potter? Viagra? Seriously. Anyone thinking 9/11 was inherently unpredictable should read this: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/15/opinion/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-20101015 Lift your game people. You've been taken for a ride.
The lone example currently given is not valid: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. John Kay said it was not a Black Swan:
Magnitude 9.0 earthquakes are not unprecedented:
- Ac44ck ( talk) 23:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Finally some sanity prevails here. But alas we have NO examples now. What a tragedy! —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
38.121.134.234 (
talk)
12:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
I like the example given on the following post -
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-28-2011-real-black-real-swan.html
167.30.73.70 (
talk)
04:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
IMHO this whole theory is flawed. 1) Black swans may be rare but they don't cause a great (or any?) change in the general swan population. 2) Numerous other phrases and similes already exist which do actually make sense. 3) Defining any human-driven event as completely unpredictable is foolish and natural events will all have precedent.
There appears to be quite a bit of discussion as to whether this article is about a theory or not. Can I propose a name change to "Black Swan (unpredictable event)" and changing the first three paragraphs to remove references to "theory". Edratzer ( talk) 18:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
There appears to be quite a bit of discussion as to whether this article is about a theory or not. Can I propose a name change to "Black Swan (unpredictable event)" and changing the first three paragraphs to remove references to "theory". Edratzer ( talk) 18:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The philosopher Edna Ullmann-Margalit detected an inconsistency in this book and asked me to justify the use of the precise metaphor of a Black Swan to describe the unknown, the abstract, and imprecise uncertain—white ravens, pink elephants... Indeed, she caught me red handed. There is a contradiction; this book is a story, and I prefer to use stories and vignettes to illustrate our gullibility about stories and our preference for the dangerous compression of narratives... The metaphor of the black swan is not at all a modern one—contrary to its usual attribution to Popper, Mill, Hume, and others. I selected it because it corresponds to the ancient idea of a “rare bird.” The Latin poet Juvenal refers to a “bird as rare as the black swan”...
— Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2010). The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility. Random House. p. 31. ISBN 9780679604181. LCCN 2010292618.
I can predict when an author is about to plagiarize me, and poorly so when he writes that Taleb “popularized” the theory of Black Swan events.
— Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2010). The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms. Random House. p. 48. ISBN 9780679643685. LCCN 2010036866.
Black Swan events by token of the theory outside the present verification of the author of the theory:
Wikipedia rejects attempts to introduce these events on its page «Black swan theory» Black swan theory. In returned notations it is that only a verifiable and introduced reliable source would permit the entry within the Wikipedia article. -- Laurencebeck ( talk) 03:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Surely the must be better examples of Black Swans than these SAP-related system failures. Wikifier ( talk) 02:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
The whole page reads like an extended advertisement for Taleb's books. Did he perhaps write the whole page himself? Or maybe some PR flack for his publisher wrote it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.30.132 ( talk) 21:13, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
It seems like an attempt to force the phrase into the common vernacular, using Wikipedia as the vehicle for that effort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.227.246 ( talk) 19:01, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Any attempts at changes are reverted. Genetikbliss ( talk) 02:50, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
The author of this book seems to have made some pretty bold claims about the nature of history and predictive models. Surely someone has responded, or otherwise, why not? Did the book have any impact at all? If not it might not be notable enough to justify the article's existence. 138.16.21.199 ( talk) 15:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Considering the pictures don't actually relate to the article, maybe it would be more fitting to just include the first picture? Archlinux ( talk) 03:08, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:09, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 05:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Black swan theory. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
Would it be possible to link to an archive of the article, or ask around for a copy, instead of deleting the content outright? Vecr ( talk) 15:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)