The Black Swan

0002/E2nd edition.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas 저자(글)

Random House Trade · 2010년 05월 11일

책 소개

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to immersing himself in problems of luck, uncertainty, probability, and knowledge. Part literary essayist, part empiricist, part no-nonsense mathematical trader, he is currently taking a break as Dean's Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His last book, the bestsellerFooled by Randomness, has been published in nineteen languages. Taleb lives mostly in New York. From the Hardcover edition.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has devoted his life to immersing himself in problems of luck, randomness, human error, probability, and the philosophy of knowledge. He managed to transform his interests into three successful careers, as a man of letters, businessman-trader-risk manager, and university professor. Although he spends most of his time as a fl'neur, meditating in caf? across the planet, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University's Polytechnic Institute and Principal of Universa. His books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan have been published in 31 languages. He is widely recognized as the foremost thinker on probability and uncertainty. Taleb lives mostly in New York.
PROLOGUE ON THE PLUMAGE OF BIRDS Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced thatallswans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and, I am told, quite ugly) black bird.* I push one step beyond this philosophical-logical question into an empirical reality, and one that has obsessed me since childhood. What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is anoutlier,as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrenceafterthe fact, making it explainable and predictable. I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability.* A small number of Black Swans explain almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives. Ever since we left the Pleistocene, some ten millennia ago, the effect of these Black Swans has been increasing. It started accelerating during the industrial revolution, as the world started getting more complicated, while ordinary events, the ones we study and discuss and try to predict from reading the newspapers, have become increasingly inconsequential. Just imagine how little your understanding of the world on the eve of the events of 1914 would have helped you guess what was to happen next. (Don't cheat by using the explanations drilled into your cranium by your dull high school teacher). How about the rise of Hitler and the subsequent war? How about the precipitous demise of the Soviet bloc? How about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? How about the spread of the Internet? How about the market crash of 1987 (and the more unexpected recovery)? Fads, epidemics, fashion, ideas, the emergence of art genres and schools. All follow these Black Swan dynamics. Literally, just about everything of significance around you might qualify. This combination of low predictability and large impact makes the Black Swan a great puzzle; but that is not yet the core concern of this book. Add to this phenomenon the fact that we tend to act as if it does not exist! I don't mean just you, your cousin Joey, and me, but almost all "social scientists" who, for over a century, have operated under the false belief that their tools could measure uncertainty. For the applications of the sciences of uncertainty to real-world problems has had ridiculous effects; I have been privileged to see it in finance and economics. Go ask your portfolio manager for his definition of "risk," and odds are that he will supply you with ameasurethatexcludesthe possibility of the Black Swanhence one that has no better predictive value for assessing the total risks than astrology (we will see how they dress up the intellectual fraud with mathematics). This problem is endemic in social matters. The central idea of this book concerns our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly the large deviations: Why do we, scientists or nonscientists, hotshots or regular Joes, tend to see the pennie
Examines the role of the unexpected, discussing why improbable events are not anticipated or understood properly, and how humans rationalize the black swan phenomenon to make it appear less random.
A Black Swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the "impossible." For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book--itself a black swan. From the Hardcover edition.
A black swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we-especially the experts-are blind to them. In this second edition, Taleb has added a new essay, On Robustness and Fragility, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world. *2nd Edition, With a new essay: "On Robustness and Fragility"
A black swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we-especially the experts-are blind to them. In this second edition, Taleb has added a new essay,On Robustness and Fragility, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world. *2nd Edition, With a new essay: "On Robustness and Fragility"
" The Black Swanchanged my view of how the world works."-Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate "Hugely enjoyable-compelling . . . easy to dip into."- Financial Times "A masterpiece."-Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail "Idiosyncratically brilliant."-Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times
"The Black Swanchanged my view of how the world works."-Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate "Hugely enjoyable-compelling . . . easy to dip into."-Financial Times "A masterpiece."-Chris Anderson, author ofThe Long Tail "Idiosyncratically brilliant."-Niall Ferguson,Los Angeles Times
??The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works.??Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate ??ugely enjoyable-compelling . . . easy to dip into.?? Financial Times ?? masterpiece.??Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail ??diosyncratically brilliant.??Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times

작가정보

저자(글) Taleb, Nassim Nicholas

불확실성 문제를 여러 분야에 걸쳐 연구하는 문학평론가 겸 계량 트레이더. 워튼 스쿨에서 경영학 석사학위를, 파리 도핀 대학에서 박사학위를 받았고, 뉴욕과 런던, 시카고에서 계량 트레이더로 활동하며 철학, 수학, 금융, 사회과학 등의 다양한 분야를 연구했다. 그가 처음 《행운에 속지 마라》를 세상에 내놓았을 때, 사람들은 ‘세상사의 대부분은 운에 좌우된다’라는 그의 견해에 주목하지 않았다. 그러나 2008년 서브프라임모기지 사태 이후, 일약 세계에서 가장 주목받는 경제학자로 떠올랐다. 2009년에는 경제지 〈포브스〉 발표 ‘세계에서 가장 영향력 있는 경제 전문가’로 선정되었으며, 현재 뉴욕대학교 폴리테크닉연구소의 리스크공학 특훈교수로, 자신의 연구와 실험을 독자적으로 진행하고 있다. 그의 연구는 불투명성 하에서의 의사결정과 확률의 수학적ㆍ철학적 문제, 다시 말해서 ‘우리가 이해할 수 없는 세상에서 무엇을 할 것인가’에 초점을 맞추고 있다. 저서로는 《블랙 스완》, 《행운에 속지 마라》(Fooled by Randomness), 《안티프래질》(Antifragile), 《블랙 스완과 함께 가라》(The Bed of Procrustes) 《스킨 인 더 게임》(Skin in the Game)등이 있다.

기본정보

ISBN	9780812973815 ( 081297381X )
발행(출시)일자	2010년 05월 11일
쪽수	480쪽
크기	115 * 218 * 26 mm / 331 g
총권수	1권
언어	영어