The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Trying to be provocative is not very interesting, but as Taleb actually has something very interesting to say it is easy to ignore his teenage way of writing.

Anyone who knows me understand that I would read a book where one of the first pages contains this gem: “Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? And, if you follow my argument, why does reading newspaper actually decrease your knowledge of the world?”

The theme of the book is how we deal with the things that never have happened before. How do we prepare for what we cannot know, especially if these are really massive events? But it is not done in a very structured way and it is one of these books that seems to focus more on sales on airports than actually contribute to some new thinking. It is entertainment, not education.

However, the use of models (by social scientists and economists) are dealt with in a brilliant way from time to time, and the book provides a lot of material for inspiration. It is inspiration of the best kind (i.e. when the author writes about an important issue, but you disagree with much of what is written…)

One of my favorites is on page 280 “Economists often invoke a strange argument by Milton Friedman that states that models do not have to have realistic assumptions to be acceptable – giving them license to produce severely defective mathematical representations of reality. The problem is of course that these Gaussianizantions do not have realistic assumptions and do not produce reliable results. They are neither realistic nor predictive.” This might be the only thing future students will learn about much of the national/political economy from the end of the 20^th Century… ;)

The issue on how we deal with things we have never seen before is very real in the case of climate change, we need to act before we have seen the consequences and with an issue that society was not made to deal with. Usually we create rules and regulations after the problem appears, but this is not possible this time as we might only have one chance.

PS
The cover of the book I bought in India is really nice, no text at all just the white and black swan, very simple...

A sad moment in a happy context

During the weekend got the following question over a dinner (The happy context was Mattias Klum turning 40 years) “name one thing that is bad about climate change”… Such a strange question to get 2008. My response was another question (as I think the reply is valid for climate change as well) “Can you name one bad thing about war”. (in the same

It got me thinking that even educated people with time to think might have a hard time to understand the magnitude of the challenge and the suffering climate change already is causing.

Maybe it is media that is creating this longing for “one” answer and make it hard for people to deal with complexity, especially if it is in the shape of a black swan (something that you have never seen before).

Maybe it was just a bad conversation starter, as an optimist I hope that it was the case and not that we are more ignorant that I dare to think.

PS
James at WEF reminded me yesterday about the situation in China and here is a link to a weather related article (this took place as they were preparing celebrations for the Chinese new year)

A sad moment in a happy context

During the weekend got the following question over a dinner (The happy context was Mattias Klum turning 40 years) “name one thing that is bad about climate change”… Such a strange question to get 2008. My response was another question (as I think the reply is valid for climate change as well) “Can you name one bad thing about war”. (in the same

It got me thinking that even educated people with time to think might have a hard time to understand the magnitude of the challenge and the suffering climate change already is causing.

Maybe it is media that is creating this longing for “one” answer and make it hard for people to deal with complexity, especially if it is in the shape of a black swan (something that you have never seen before).

Maybe it was just a bad conversation starter, as an optimist I hope that it was the case and not that we are more ignorant that I dare to think.

PS
James at WEF reminded me yesterday about the situation in China and here is a link to a weather related article (this took place as they were preparing celebrations for the Chinese new year)

Desperation in the coal sector – The Future(gen) is dead, but industry refuse to re-think, or?

Futuregen, another clean coal power project is dead, but the coal people refuse to see the writing on the wall.

Technology exist to deliver fossil free solutions, but that require us to drop the current supply driven perspective and move to focus on the services we need. The heavy coal actors will probably never to manage this transition, but in some companies there is hope shining in through the cracks of the fossil façade.

For example, Vattenfall is working on a new business model (Portfolio Vision) that moves them away from the linear (block-on-a-block) approach that result in more coal and CCS solutions, towards a service perspective that look at what people really want (see snapshot). Not clear if this will transform one of the biggest polluter and slick climate communicators to a company that actually deliver sustainable solutions, but it is encouraging to see innovative thinking from a company that is in the forefront when it comes to locking EU into an unsustainable future.

Maybe they have read one of the many studies that show that sustainable system solutions (demand side and renewables integrated) is less expensive, e.g. one of the studies from Booz Allen Hamilton.

Desperation in the coal sector – The Future(gen) is dead, but industry refuse to re-think, or?

Futuregen, another clean coal power project is dead, but the coal people refuse to see the writing on the wall.

Technology exist to deliver fossil free solutions, but that require us to drop the current supply driven perspective and move to focus on the services we need. The heavy coal actors will probably never to manage this transition, but in some companies there is hope shining in through the cracks of the fossil façade.

For example, Vattenfall is working on a new business model (Portfolio Vision) that moves them away from the linear (block-on-a-block) approach that result in more coal and CCS solutions, towards a service perspective that look at what people really want (see snapshot). Not clear if this will transform one of the biggest polluter and slick climate communicators to a company that actually deliver sustainable solutions, but it is encouraging to see innovative thinking from a company that is in the forefront when it comes to locking EU into an unsustainable future.

Maybe they have read one of the many studies that show that sustainable system solutions (demand side and renewables integrated) is less expensive, e.g. one of the studies from Booz Allen Hamilton.