Black swans are the unexpected outliers, the rare and unpredictable events that defy our usual expectations and profoundly impact our world. They are the surprises that no one sees coming, the game-changers that reshape the landscape of the possible.
Black swans are reminders that the future is always more surprising than we imagine.
Think of the rise of the internet, COVID-19, or the attack on 9/11. Each of these events was, in its own way, a black swan — an unexpected occurrence that had an extreme impact and was only explainable in retrospect.
[Black Swans] are event[s] with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, 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 occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
Nassim Taleb
Black Swans are what you don’t see. They are the unknown unknowns—events we don’t know until they happen.
They’re not just surprises. Something unexpected to you isn’t necessarily a black swan. Unforeseeable to you doesn’t mean unforeseeable to all.
The problem with black swans is that we can’t see them coming. We predict based on the past, assuming tomorrow resembles today. But black swans shatter this logic, breaking our understanding and shifting reality.
In our complex, interconnected world, black swans are becoming more frequent and impactful. A small event can quickly cascade globally, turning the improbable into the inevitable. A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, and the stock market crashes in New York. (see Butterfly Effect).
How do we deal with a world where black swans are always lurking on the horizon?
We cannot predict the future. As much as we try and as confident as we are, we miss the most significant things. They are significant, in part, because we miss them.
Instead of trying to predict the future, we need to position ourselves for multiple possible futures.
Still Curious? Read about the benefits of an antifragile life.