Rare is actually quite common. The paradox of probability.

On Wednesday we had a snow storm that resulted in compromised traffic, train delays, canceled classes and working from home for many. I wasn’t posting a lot this week, but I was actively reading (not just steemit) and discussing ideas almost every day observing also my own beliefs.

This brought me to a conclusion that we as a modern society still believe in the truthfulness of the bias that most = all, and, in other words, that what is rare and highly unlikely, is not going to happen.

What's going to happen though is that this post isn’t going to be a long one as it’s a Friday night and I started outlining it in my notebook by a glass of wine and eggs benedict (no bacon), and I’m starting to feel slightly drowsy after the week.

Now, we may say that events such as:

• encountering a person with two different eye colors (I know two),
• a hail and snow storm in March after a February when temperatures reached 78 F (Wednesday),
• gene mutations, side effects, vaccine injury
  may, and do occur. Think of a rare condition that you have. You will realize that rare events actually occur very often!

Wednesday's snow storm turned New York City upside down. What would have happened if no one expected it?

I would like to introduce you to “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Taleb (2007), a piece that is said to be one of the most important books of the 20th century, and definitely a must-read not just for entrepreneurs, but in my opinion, for all of us, paddling in Bauman's liquid modernity.

What is a black swan?

A black swan, according to Taleb, is a highly unlikely event that has a large impact, and post factum appears to have really been quite predictable. Black swans (the birds) were first discovered in 1967 and until then nobody even thought of their existence. If someone mentioned he saw one, it could have been laughed off as a hallucination. That's why the events we are talking about are called black swans.

This is a great read to justify the conviction that you have to question everything, including your own beliefs. The average Joe who blindly follows the media will accept any information provided by the specialist, as long as he can be tranquil and complacent even if the information is wrong and potentially harmful. Thus the occurrence of the flat earth movement that you may have heard of - to observe how fiercely we are capable of defending non-empiric knowledge we've absorbed. Now, think about how many times in history (that you know of) obsolete knowledge was withdrawn from schools and replaced with new. How often a small discovery in medicine changed the course of someone's personal history. As Taleb states himself, progress happens in leaps, it is not a steady process. Think about mathematics and astronomy, which are either an approximation, or simply highly limited. Think about technology, IT.

How to deal with black swans?

Nassim Taleb develops the idea of antifragility, which constitutes the resistance of a system to the occurrence of black swans. Fragility lies in the lack of awareness of the fact that black swans do and may occur. The only way to deal with it is to develop a certain strength to react to an unexpected event, when we cannot predict and avoid it.

And before we say good night, a thought (that I wrote down a while ago but now I can't seem to find in the text, so don't quote me on that but it made me smile in agreement):

We don't think as much as we think we do.

Nassim N. Taleb is an American economist, philosopher and trader, Master of Sciences with a PhD in Management. His research focuses on probability, randomness and uncertainty. Currently, Taleb is a professor at the NYU.

Good night, my dear rare occurrences!

There rare occurrences are a part of the "Comme des Garcons" exhibition by Rei Kawakudo at the Metropolitan Museum from last year. I will post more on that soon.