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"
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Narrated by:
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Joe Ochman
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 AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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"
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-04-20
Eye opening insight to the misuse of statistics
Quite a long listen but so much interesting content. Very eye opening and I will now take a sceptical mindset to news articles and studies stating statistics.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr D & Mrs E Owers
- 24-06-19
Excellent
Not like any book I read before. A philosophical viewpoint, elegantly explained with a great sort of condescending wit. Very funny in places and very well narrated. I watched NNT on YouTube and I actually think the narrator's voice suits this book better than the author's. It gets quite technical in places but never too much. 5 stars.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Phil Winston
- 15-06-19
Amazing
Probably the single best book I've ever read in my entire life. Seriously, I couldn't stop listening to it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Alex S.
- 11-09-22
assertive but not humble
Extraordinary book. Eyes opener. I will listen to it again to extract more of the immense value it contains. The only negative is the aggressive tone sometimes.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Serban Dragne
- 12-08-19
Essential reading
This was the third time I’ve read this book since it came out and I know I’ll be rereading it again in the near future. Each time I think I understood it but every time I read it I find something new that sticks with me and I find myself mulling it over for weeks after. Today is 2019 and it feels more prophetic than when it first came out. Bravo!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-04-20
Epic breakdown into bitesize understandings
Loved this. Left me curious for the possibility of the new, the unknown possibility. Grateful for this understanding
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Przemyslaw
- 29-10-23
Arrogant tone, but overall interesting
When I started it I wasn't sure if I'm going to finish and it if I did I thought I'd give it 2/3 stars.
It got more informative over pages / minutes listened and less focused on rambling about "useless academics and philosophers".
It earned 4 stars with the ending essays, author seems to have gained a bit more humility / courtesy over time (although not too much). Ending essays were the best part.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- O
- 23-02-20
Nerdy for sure!
Very nerdy. Also very interesting. But if you’re an ordinary person don’t expect to fully understand most of it. A book summary would be good in addition considering the length of the book, but I’ll jade to find one elsewhere
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 16-09-19
One of best books I ever read
I have listen to 150 books and that book is in my top 5... a must read
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- S. Lormor
- 19-11-19
Black Swan
The author’s passion carries you through this debunking of the assumptions that dominate economics at great pace and with interest maintained throughout. He also avoids going overly technical which opens his work to the lay person. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
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