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Whistle Stopper - The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
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List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $14.93
Your Save: $ 12.02 ( 45% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Random House
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 003.54
EAN: 9781400063512
ISBN: 1400063515
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2007-04-17
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: 2007-04-17
Studio: Random House
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: For Whom the Bell Curves
Comment: Ha! My clever title has nothing to do with my review (or does it?). Anyway, I found this book quite challenging. As I've said in other reviews, I am quite the layman when it comes to statistics and probability. But I think I got the gist of Taleb's concepts: we rely on flawed notions to make decisions or to view the world: the ludic fallacy; the narrative fallacy; the confirmation bias, etc. Foolish men (I don't think there is even one instance of a woman being mentioned, as either one who gets Taleb's thinking or doesn't) in expensive suits push on us a Bell curve from the world of Mediocristan, giving a false sense of security (and depriving us of potential big wins) in a brave new world where Black Swans - those improbable incidents for which we are impecabbly unprepared - have hugely significant impacts on our lives.
Taleb's is a mind deeply immersed in many disciplines. For those of us who spent our time in college waiting for Thursday to start partying, the subjects can be a bit challenging: philosophy, economics, financial analysis. But if you want to stretch your mind, take the challenge. There are profound and significant insights and learnings. Can I describe them to you succinctly? No. It will probably take me a few re-reads to fully grasp it all. Nevertheless, it's worth the plunge. In any event, I will forever be skeptical about any information backed up by statistical analysis.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Padded out "Fooled By Randomness"
Comment: For all the interesting stories, Black Swans has essentially the same message as Taleb's earlier book "Fooled By Randomness"; market prices do not follow a bell curve, and instead have a lot more unexpected extreme events. That said, most investment-related books tend not to linger on this issue, so Taleb is providing a reminder of something critical in markets. His style does come across arrogant, and judging by the bibliography (as well as the main text), he does want to show the world he is widely read. The stories are fun, but at times they are tangential to his thesis. The problem with reading his book is that it leaves one thinking that all investment returns come from chance. I find Mandelbrot's ideas of "gray swans" more appealing in that respect as it hints at the possibility of some skill. Taleb says he is a fan of Mandelbrot, so it would have been nice for him to explore this idea more. The book may not be the most inspiring for those involved in markets (we're all rolling dice), but a much needed reminder of the role of chance.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hard Work by Taleb; Lucky for Us
Comment: This is an excellent analysis of the limitations and flaws in
our thought processes about reconstruction of the past and predictions of the future.Once you see them with the help of Taleb,you're better
prepared to understand the world of events that occur around us.
He even has suggestions as to how to reduce those limitations.
Not always an easy read but fascinating.....
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful lessons - for investing and for life
Comment: This is Taleb's follow up to "Fooled by Randomness." I found the lessons of both books to be important and instructive for both investing and, more generally, for life. Just like a Black Jack player who overvalues results ("lucky" or "unlucky streaks") and not the quality of play, Taleb teaches the philosophy of focusing on making the right probability-adjusted decision. Moreover, he teaches to evaluate decisions (your own or those of others) based on the info at hand at the time of the decision. It is easy to judge a decision based solely on results, but that is misleading as it does not account for the potential events that could have occurred but did not.
I found Taleb's philosophy compelling. Also, his direct, no-holds-barred conversational style is easy to read. He does ramble in places as he hammers certain points home. This is not necessarily elegant prose. However, the points are important and overall this is entertaining and instructive reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nobody really knows what's going on
Comment: Taleb's main point here is that we should be extremely cautious about making predictions in nonlinear systems, as well as believing such predictions when we hear them. Unfortunately, most of the systems where we really want to know what will happen in the future are nonlinear systems--including all of human society, and the economy in particular. Taleb does a great job punching holes in the pretentiousness of "experts."
Although Taleb doesn't mention this, I would like to point out that the most accurate method known for predicting the performance of the economy is to say that tomorrow will be like today, next month will be like this month, and next year will be like this year. Of course this method of "prediction" is absolutely useless when something unexpected happens. And as Taleb's book points out, something unexpected always happens.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. Engaging and enlightening, The Black Swan is a book that may change the way you think about the world, a book that Chris Anderson calls, "a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature." See Anderson's entire guest review below.
Guest Reviewer: Chris Anderson
 Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.
Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it's something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.
The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.
Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."
In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature. --Chris Anderson
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