The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" cover art

The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"

Incerto, Book 2

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The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"

Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Narrated by: Joe Ochman
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About this listen

The Black Swan is a stand-alone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.

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. In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility”, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

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.

Includes a bonus pdf of tables and figures.

Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“The most prophetic voice of all.” (GQ)

Praise for The Black Swan:

“[A book] that altered modern thinking.” (The Times, London)

“A masterpiece.” (Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief of Wired, author of The Long Tail)

“Hugely enjoyable - compelling...easy to dip into.” (Financial Times)

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 Nassim Nicholas Taleb (P)2018 Random House Audio
Corporate & Public Finance Economics Management Money & Finance

Critic Reviews

“Engaging.... The Black Swan has appealing cheek and admirable ambition.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne.... We eagerly romp with him through the follies of confirmation bias [and] narrative fallacy.” (The Wall Street Journal)

The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works.” (Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate)

“Idiosyncratically brilliant.” (Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times)

What listeners say about The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"

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Rare insights of unpredictable events impact

Insights into inconsequential predictions, and simplistic post facto narratives for unpredictable complex random events using models to rationalise it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

clarity to question

amazing way the book shatters the reservation of a common man " for questioning prediction of outcome "
we always had this in our mind but was not bold enough to ask.
eg:- bell curve, medical treatment, stock market prediction ....

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A flawed masterpiece, unsuitable narrator

Despite not being the biggest fan of Taleb's famously abrasive personality and writing style, I keep coming back to his work because there are insights here that cannot be found anywhere else. He pulls back the curtain and reveals the fundamental flaws in the thinking that underpins most facets of modernity.

The mild mannered tone of the narration doesn't adequately convey the temperamental nature of Taleb's prose and the experience of reading suffers for it. Despite this problem, i will be returning to this title again in the future.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

it's as enlightening as it is complex

I loved it, the ideas in this book are mind boggling. I would need a second listen to get it all. And this book is worth multiple listen. it has been recounted beautifully.

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essential and eye opener

it's one of the practical yet philosophical books I have read. once you have read it, you will never see the world the same way again.

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excellent way to explain one-step phenomenon

Nassim has neatly and with great felicity and examples brought out the cases of unpredictability amidst plethora of data, analyses, theories etc... truly none of the major events were predicted by any one despite their qualifications and experience. it's this what he calls black swan and these events have potential to propel u forward disproportionately or push back similarly. very interesting read that helps understand the slippery stage of stock market or Las Vegas casinos. play at your own risk. Joe Ochman has done equally good job thru his voice over.

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Long but excellent read

In depth, detailed analysis of identifying black swans and their affects on our lives.
A serious, exhausting read.

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    2 out of 5 stars

A disaster if applied to reality

If a person loves rare events and their significance to reality, or wants to hear the benefits of being an underdog, this is the book for 'em.
From a practical or efficiency perspective, not so much. The author is inconsistent and has a lotta double standards.
This book is better considered from a philosophical perspective than a scientific/statistical/mathematical one.

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Gets boring very fast

The book starts out as interesting when the author highlights how what has been is not what one expects, especially related to the war in his home country. But then the same thing keeps getting repeated chapter over chapter - and alongwith a little droning voice of narrator, made this book hard to read.It would have been helpful if author made efforts to identify areas and give means to identify black swans (like how he alluded to when speaking about financial instruments) instead of beating up every profession.

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Fine

Very interesting points made on occasion, sometimes it feels like a rant ; showing off.
The author explained issues / biases well but it a chapter leads to that point and then nothing, no solution.

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