Black swan theory is an idea proposed by Nassim Nicolas Taleb that refers to unlikely, unpredictable events that have massive impact and are often incorrectly rationalized in hindsight.
Black Swan events have the following three attributes:
Outlier — an event that is extremely rare and lies outside the realm of regular expectations
Impact — an event that carries extreme impact that can be transformative for economies, societies, or individuals.
Retrospective predictability — After the event, people will rationalize it as something that was predictable, even though it wasn’t predicted in advanced. The event seems obvious in hindsight.
What are some Black Swan events?
World War I
The rise of the Internet
The personal computer
Large language model performance
Why identify Black Swans? It’s not about predicting unpredictable events (usually through hindsight bias), but to minimize the effects of these negative events while still capture the outputs of the positive events. One way that Taleb does this is through a concept called antifragility, but at the end of the day, it’s just good risk management.
Good, brief definition. I like these, Matt.
Great synopsis.
The ability to predict the Internet depends on what point in time you attempt the prediction.
>ARPANET connects two locaton using satellites (packet switched network) - 1969
>University of Hawaii develops Alohanet (Aloha), the catalyst for ethernet using the concept of Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) - 1970
>Xerox PARC develops first ethernet network 1973
>email, gaming, domains etc - mid 70's - mind 80's
>homebrew -> pc's also 70's - 80's
...
My observation about predicting black swan events is there must be a moment in time when all of the necessary but sufficient data exists upon which a prediction can be based.
With that in mind, at what point in the history of the Internet would that moment be in your opinion? This isn't a trap or a trick question... I'm simply wanting to understand & explore this type of thinking so that I can incorporate it into how I understand/observe 'things' and how I may want to think in regards to developing connections/associations
It seems that ubiquitous networks and affordable computing that can be attached to the network are 2 of the pillars upon which one could base speculation
After my undergraduate work mid 80's I worked in the Bell System (post divesture)... so I was immersed in communications of all sorts... but the idea that networks would become ubiquitous AND independent from traditional telecoms was quantum leap forward.
Respectfully,
-Scott