The Black Swan

“The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a groundbreaking exploration into the concept of rare, unpredictable, and highly impactful events termed “black swans.” Taleb argues that these unforeseen and extreme occurrences, which are usually rationalized or explained in hindsight, have a profound and often disproportionate influence on history, economics, science, and everyday life. Drawing from various disciplines including mathematics, philosophy, and economics, Taleb challenges the traditional methods of predicting and understanding events in a world filled with uncertainty and randomness. He contends that humans tend to underestimate the role of unpredictable events in shaping the course of history and instead rely on flawed models and narratives that don’t account for these rare but impactful occurrences.