Post by violet on Oct 8, 2008 19:55:12 GMT 10
Despite the poetic name, this book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is about randomness.
I read an interview with him recently and felt that he expressed some of my theories on life so well that I had to read the book.
Have only read the preface, so I'll let the blurb tell you what the book's about:
"What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street, Harry Potter and the internet got in common?........Why are almost all forecasters con-artists?
This book is about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're nearly always impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', The Black Swan shows us how to stop trying to predict everything and take advantage of uncertainty."
I read an interview with him recently and felt that he expressed some of my theories on life so well that I had to read the book.
Have only read the preface, so I'll let the blurb tell you what the book's about:
"What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street, Harry Potter and the internet got in common?........Why are almost all forecasters con-artists?
This book is about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're nearly always impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. A rallying cry to ignore the 'experts', The Black Swan shows us how to stop trying to predict everything and take advantage of uncertainty."