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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
As this was the last book from the Incerto series, this is more of a rating for the whole Incerto series, which is incredible.
I really feel like it changed my outlook on life, risk, and probability. There's so much to unpack in all of them and I'll certainly re-read.
It's one of those rare books that articulates a lot of what you've come to believe instinctively.
I really feel like it changed my outlook on life, risk, and probability. There's so much to unpack in all of them and I'll certainly re-read.
It's one of those rare books that articulates a lot of what you've come to believe instinctively.
Not an easy book to read. But if you manage to get past the author's slight arrogance, you will find your mind changed, paradigm shifted, world-view altered, and thinking about Black Swans every day of your life.
Oh my god this is a hard book to read -- the author spends the whole time so pleased with himself that it is a painful slog. I gave 2 stars instead of 1 star because I think the basic ideas, that random events have big impacts and that people frequently assign meaning to random events or make up after-the-fact causation arguments, are true and underappreciated (although they hyave certainly been discussed before, including in Taleb's previous book). But holy crap it is is painful to read his prose.
This book is near incomprehensible. The author jumps between subjects and examples, both real and illustrative without a narrative thread connecting the ideas constantly. All points he makes are fleeting and confusing due to the nature of the structure. A good editor could have maybe wrung a solid long magazine article out of the content, should have been 1/32 the length.
challenging
slow-paced
I had high hopes for the book, especially in thinking about how to contend with unmeasurable high impact events in forecasting. Unfortunately, it was rambling, incoherent, and I didn't get much to this end. The main reason I stopped was because the author was way too pompous and preoccupied with the idea of defining individual success
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
It's with a sigh of relief that I finish this book. It's quite intense, there are some very interesting ideas in it, but there's so much to get through: mathematics, philosophy, economics, probability, stock trading, history...
I found myself swinging between two modes, thinking 'I'm not clever enough to understand this' and thinking 'this author thinks he's so clever'. There are many generalisations used to demonstrate the various points, including a massive misunderstanding/oversimplification of autism, and this coupled with the smug attitude makes it a bit of a frustrating read.
So yes, there's a good premise at the heart of it and it will make you think, but I personally found it exhausting.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced
This book is definitely out of my comfort zone and not something I would naturally pick up, but I am glad I read it. Some of NNT's ideas will persist over time; however, from my amateur standpoint, that may mean that I will only be able to measure their impact in hindsight.
NNT's style may not be to everyone's liking, but beyond that, the influence of being exposed to a theory to which we are all inevitably subject to due to our human nature is increasingly difficult to ignore. A Black Swan is an event that meets the following criteria: it is an outlier, it carries an extreme impact, and it becomes predictable or explainable only in retrospect (think 9/11, Google or cultural phenomena, such as Harry Potter).
Our mind is incapable of formulating events that will dramatically change our lives, though we will have no issue citing a list of explanations afterward, including all the apparent facts that led us up to that point. We rely on the past because it is the only thing we are sure of, as it successfully provides the narrative that we desperately cling to rationalize the present and predict the future. Consequently, we believe we know more than we do, which lead us to make decisions and take risks based on a series of strict rules, wherein extreme deviations from the norm and its subsequent impact are not conceived.
The goal of this book is not to offer solutions to aid us in the decision-making process. The very essence of the Black Swan theory hints the futility of predicting a Black Swan, conceding that such events will not be perceived equally by everyone. Following the analogy offered by the author, we can only do our best to identify areas of vulnerability and be more resilient to avoid becoming a turkey.
NNT's style may not be to everyone's liking, but beyond that, the influence of being exposed to a theory to which we are all inevitably subject to due to our human nature is increasingly difficult to ignore. A Black Swan is an event that meets the following criteria: it is an outlier, it carries an extreme impact, and it becomes predictable or explainable only in retrospect (think 9/11, Google or cultural phenomena, such as Harry Potter).
Our mind is incapable of formulating events that will dramatically change our lives, though we will have no issue citing a list of explanations afterward, including all the apparent facts that led us up to that point. We rely on the past because it is the only thing we are sure of, as it successfully provides the narrative that we desperately cling to rationalize the present and predict the future. Consequently, we believe we know more than we do, which lead us to make decisions and take risks based on a series of strict rules, wherein extreme deviations from the norm and its subsequent impact are not conceived.
The goal of this book is not to offer solutions to aid us in the decision-making process. The very essence of the Black Swan theory hints the futility of predicting a Black Swan, conceding that such events will not be perceived equally by everyone. Following the analogy offered by the author, we can only do our best to identify areas of vulnerability and be more resilient to avoid becoming a turkey.