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Comment by fulafel | Hacker News Reader

Black swan events may be predictable in their eventuality but are blind spots for human psychology because they are sufficiently rare.

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Black swan events aren't predictable by definition. They're usually events sufficiently rare that when they happen, it's the first time that category of event has been observed. This, we can't assess their likelihood since we have no real prior. So a market crash, plague, asteroid, etc. aren't black swan events. They just aren't rare enough. We've seen them. They have an annual probability. Hell, a COVID-like illness isn't even all that unlikely. A lethal fungal plague might be, since we've never seen such a thing in humans, although we've seen that in other mammals so it shouldn't come as a total shock.

As a better example, an AI apocalypse would be a black swan since we've never observed such an event and have no really great way of assessing its likelihood. Although we've some idea of that possibility.

To really get at the meat of it, consider the name. Black swans came as a surprise when Europeans visited Australia because a non-white swan had never before been observed. No one would even have thought to ask the question "what are the odds you find an all black swan in Australia?"

I think you are working with a harder defn of it than the original definition:

WP:

"Based on the [Taleb]'s criteria:

    1 The event is a surprise (to the observer).

    2 The event has a major effect.

    3 After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected [...]"

I don't mean to add any fire to the debate. Just wanted to gently point out that the first recorded instances of a pandemic have happened so a pandemic does break the 3rd rule.

I think other commenters have pointed out that the reaction of global leadership has been a surprise with major effects that will be rationalised in the future. Making their reaction to the event itself the black swan event.

In a rational world, we'd have expected leaders to band together against a potential pandemic. That this level of incompetency should have been expected will be the rationalization that follows.

If you read the book Black Swan, it is exactly one of its defining characteristics that it is unpredictable. The only thing you can do against black swans is making systems less fragile.

Yes, there is a big difference between predicting an occurrence and theoretically knowing about it's possibility / eventual occurrence.

Here's Talebs essay for those without the book: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6fc4/ed36e247194c9c0b7adfec...

Small nitpick: Unpredictable for the observer. So in a way this pandemic was a black swan for some (naive) people.

On the other hand, I think it's good that someone like Taleb now goes around and pokes all the policymakers and governments that nothing of this was unpredictable and Corona is a white swan event.

It’s been a while I read it, but you are right. Personally I think it already ranks amongst the most important books of the 21st century. Everyone should read it.

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