In his books Fooled by Randomness (2001) and The Black Swan (2007), the Antiochean-Greek, Lebanese American writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb gave us his theory of the "Black Swan" event. The theory pointed out something rather obvious, namely that unexpected things occasionally happen.
The name of the theory comes from the unexpected discovery of black swans in Australia when the British started cataloguing the wildlife of that isolated continent in the 18th and 19th centuries. Clearly no-one expected to find swans that were actually black, even though a lot of even weirder forms of life were also being discovered at the time, like the duck-billed platypus.
The main examples of Black Swan events mentioned by Taleb include—rather predictably—the rise of the Internet, the appearance of the personal computer, World War I, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the September 11 attacks. Not really sure why he missed out the invention of the can opener and the eruption of Mt. Thera. It just doesn't seem particularly scientific, this theory. Also, if he writes another book on this topic, I suggest he watches the great work of James Burke to come up with some more “out-of-the-box” examples of unlikely event causation.
A good case can be made that none of the main examples Taleb sites are actually Black Swans at all. For example, the extremely long period of European peace from 1815 to 1914 (with a few "minor" exceptions) seems much more like a Black Swan than the war that finally—and rather predictably—broke out following the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Really, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. There had been plenty of other tense moments in the years leading up to WWI.
If the outbreak of WWI was in fact a “Black Swan” event, as Taleb contends, then the states of Europe would not have had enormous armies with millions of reserves and complex plans and railway timetables for the purposes of attacking each other and countering such attacks now, would they?
Taleb is on slightly firmer ground with the collapse of the Soviet Union, although here too there were clear signs of the coming collapse to those with eyes to see. Also, there was something at least a little teleological about the way in which the West behaved at the time, as it raised the stakes—financial and military—in a way that the Soviet Union found hard to match.
But the only point I wish to make is that none of Taleb’s examples have anything that is gob-smackingly shocking about them—certainly not in our own mad age.
Indeed, even the notion of finding a species that has slightly different plumage from other members of its genus is not actually that left-field to begin with, as new varieties and species of animals were continually being found in the Age of Discovery, and are even being found today.
Of course, the Whiteness and purity symbolised by Northern Hemispheric swans had become something of a long-running poetic meme. Discovering that there were black varieties no doubt caused a little frisson by rubbing up against that. But, really, it was no big deal, as there are plenty more shocking and ridiculous things in the animal kingdom than that.
The truth is that Taleb’s philosophical schemata—if we deign to call it that—is rather conservative and unambitious. All he has really done is come up with a rather catchy name for the well-known phenomenon that data analysts, scientists, and prediction “experts” tend to focus on established patterns that they can feed established data through, developing more than a few blind spots along the way. Common sense always told us as much as this anyway.
Wikipedia sums up the main characteristics of Taleb’s "Black Swan Theory"—or "BS theory" for short—as follows:
A more honest appraisal of reality is that since about 2012—the date when the Mayan calendar apparently ran out—the World we live in has become increasingly unhinged and erratic. We are seeing social trends and phenomena that no longer fit rational patterns of explanation. We are now experiencing things that simply wouldn’t make sense to any society or civilisation in the last 1000 years or more.
Some obvious examples that spring to mind include:
To use a catchy Taleb-like metaphor, we are now seeing things taking place that simply should not be possible in the same way that hot snow is not considered to be scientifically possible.
As already mentioned above the criteria of Taleb’s Black Swan events are:
The end result of this is that people develop either a de-energising fatalism and passivity, or a wild craving for order and meaning that is no longer moored to reason, logic, or the still-existing social order, which has become delegitimized in their eyes. The first of these responses is an individual-oriented response, the second a more group-oriented one.
As external observation simply reveals surreal and fantastic occurrences, reality becomes something external that is either ignored or something internal to be imposed outwards in accordance with sectarian group norms. These new sectarian “realities” dictate the formation of groups that fight to impose their “realities” on the wider world or effectively isolate their members from it.
This may be the true meaning of the term “multiculturalism.”
The Hot Snow reality—or world of “realities”—that we are now living through is a truly fascinating place. In fact, one of reminded of the marvellously medieval realm that we can still access in the works of Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville—a place of dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons, and Pygmies—a place where memes have more meaning than long established rational processes that are clearly breaking down.
The snow is falling but it is the ground that melts beneath it.
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Affirmative Right and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here. He is also featured in Arktos's A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders.
Become a Patron!
The name of the theory comes from the unexpected discovery of black swans in Australia when the British started cataloguing the wildlife of that isolated continent in the 18th and 19th centuries. Clearly no-one expected to find swans that were actually black, even though a lot of even weirder forms of life were also being discovered at the time, like the duck-billed platypus.
The main examples of Black Swan events mentioned by Taleb include—rather predictably—the rise of the Internet, the appearance of the personal computer, World War I, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the September 11 attacks. Not really sure why he missed out the invention of the can opener and the eruption of Mt. Thera. It just doesn't seem particularly scientific, this theory. Also, if he writes another book on this topic, I suggest he watches the great work of James Burke to come up with some more “out-of-the-box” examples of unlikely event causation.
A good case can be made that none of the main examples Taleb sites are actually Black Swans at all. For example, the extremely long period of European peace from 1815 to 1914 (with a few "minor" exceptions) seems much more like a Black Swan than the war that finally—and rather predictably—broke out following the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Really, if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. There had been plenty of other tense moments in the years leading up to WWI.
If the outbreak of WWI was in fact a “Black Swan” event, as Taleb contends, then the states of Europe would not have had enormous armies with millions of reserves and complex plans and railway timetables for the purposes of attacking each other and countering such attacks now, would they?
 |
| Yes, WWI was the least unexpected event in World history. |
But the only point I wish to make is that none of Taleb’s examples have anything that is gob-smackingly shocking about them—certainly not in our own mad age.
Indeed, even the notion of finding a species that has slightly different plumage from other members of its genus is not actually that left-field to begin with, as new varieties and species of animals were continually being found in the Age of Discovery, and are even being found today.
Of course, the Whiteness and purity symbolised by Northern Hemispheric swans had become something of a long-running poetic meme. Discovering that there were black varieties no doubt caused a little frisson by rubbing up against that. But, really, it was no big deal, as there are plenty more shocking and ridiculous things in the animal kingdom than that.
The truth is that Taleb’s philosophical schemata—if we deign to call it that—is rather conservative and unambitious. All he has really done is come up with a rather catchy name for the well-known phenomenon that data analysts, scientists, and prediction “experts” tend to focus on established patterns that they can feed established data through, developing more than a few blind spots along the way. Common sense always told us as much as this anyway.
Wikipedia sums up the main characteristics of Taleb’s "Black Swan Theory"—or "BS theory" for short—as follows:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major effect.
- After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. The same is true for the personal perception by individuals.
A more honest appraisal of reality is that since about 2012—the date when the Mayan calendar apparently ran out—the World we live in has become increasingly unhinged and erratic. We are seeing social trends and phenomena that no longer fit rational patterns of explanation. We are now experiencing things that simply wouldn’t make sense to any society or civilisation in the last 1000 years or more.
Some obvious examples that spring to mind include:
- The sudden acceptance of trangender bathrooms
- The sudden acceptance of gay marriage
- The sudden acceptance of gay adoption
- The sudden acceptance of gender fluidity as normal
- Non-resistance to free universal porn
- The sudden acceptance of sex change procedures for kids
- Lack of interest in drastically falling testosterone levels
- The continued failure of politicians to address dysgenic Western fertility
- Non-resistance to mass immigration at a time of mass automation
- Environmental hysteria
- Deplatforming of milquetoast figures from social media
- Wide acceptance of terms like "triggering," "safe spaces," and "micro-aggressions"
- Incellism, MGTOW, etc.
- Muslim "grooming" gangs in the UK
To use a catchy Taleb-like metaphor, we are now seeing things taking place that simply should not be possible in the same way that hot snow is not considered to be scientifically possible.
As already mentioned above the criteria of Taleb’s Black Swan events are:
- The event is a surprise (to the observer).
- The event has a major effect.
- After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but unaccounted for in risk mitigation programs. The same is true for the personal perception by individuals.
- The event is not a surprise, as such events are now increasingly common, and it makes no sense to the observer no matter how many times he or she tries to “understand” it.
- The event has a major effect.
- After the first recorded instance of the event, it is "de-rationalized" by an uneasy sense that it is caused by something we don’t fully understand (social media hysteria, chemtrails, too much micro-plastic in the ocean, etc.) or by something that are not allowed to talk about (Jews, gays, feminists, etc.).
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| Greta worshippers |
As external observation simply reveals surreal and fantastic occurrences, reality becomes something external that is either ignored or something internal to be imposed outwards in accordance with sectarian group norms. These new sectarian “realities” dictate the formation of groups that fight to impose their “realities” on the wider world or effectively isolate their members from it.
This may be the true meaning of the term “multiculturalism.”
The Hot Snow reality—or world of “realities”—that we are now living through is a truly fascinating place. In fact, one of reminded of the marvellously medieval realm that we can still access in the works of Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville—a place of dog-headed men, cannibals, Amazons, and Pygmies—a place where memes have more meaning than long established rational processes that are clearly breaking down.
The snow is falling but it is the ground that melts beneath it.
______________________________________
Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Affirmative Right and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here. He is also featured in Arktos's A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders.
Become a Patron!
