Safety in danger

In his book The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb told us that the world is a much weirder place than we can bear to believe. It is full of occult forces and strange events. If we think we can control or predict these forces and events, we’re sorely mistaken. One minute, we think we’ve mastered the business of lending money and hedging our bets; the next, the economy crashes. One minute, we invent a way to send a message on a computer; the next, porn is everywhere and the music business is finished. One minute, we’re a bit plump; the next, we’re obese, and heading for a diabetic meltdown. We always think we know what will happen next. Get real, said Taleb; the world is non-linear. It’s a stranger place than we want it to be.

The Black Swan was a brilliant book, and Taleb, who ran a hedge fund, made a lot of money by understanding that markets are more volatile than people think they are.