Book: The Black Swan

Posted by: Max Dunn on November 1, 2010 08:22:42

I read this book several years ago, but never got around to adding it to my book blog. However, it keeps coming up over and over again, so I thought it was time. To summarize the message of this book it is this: you can't predict the future by looking at the past. The example Taleb provides is that of the turkey raised for Thanksgiving. For forty days the turkey is treated great, given food, water and room to run around. There is no way that the turkey can predict that by looking at the past that everything is going to change on the day before Thanksgiving. In many ways, we act like turkeys. Whether it is the stock market investments or thinking that terrorists could never bring down the World Trade Center, looking at the past is not going to provide a foolproof version of the future.

Created on November 1, 2010 08:22:42 by Max Dunn (69.226.231.112)