Black Swan Corona Virus

I finally finished reading the Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. (By ‘read’ I mean listened to on audible).

Working my way through this book was a huge chore. I’m not sure whether it was the author or the narrator’s tone that conveyed such frustrating arrogance. Definitely could’ve used a different narrator. Anyway, the book had some good points and I am glad I forced myself to read it. It was recommended to me by a mathematician friend as well as various business gurus.

A ‘black swan’ is the authors metaphor for extremely rare events. The corona virus definitely falls under this category. I am not sure which is more rare, a virus of this nature, or the economic fallout from the reaction and handling of the event. We will see which is worse. The health and death toll from the virus itself, or the health and death toll resulting from the economic destruction.

The best reason for finishing this book is the last chapter is full of gold. I will probably reread the last chapter several times. It is like a poem filled with sage wisdom regarding choices

Another great takeaway is the author’s disdain for the bell curve. You know the saying, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. Well… basically he is saying that the bell curve is the main tool for many economists and statisticians and it leaves out a variety of variables. In this way the bell curve model is misused and misapplied to many data sets.

Here is a post I wrote pontificating on the book many moons ago