- Title
- The curse of the black swan
- Creator
- Mueller, J.; Stewart, M. G.
- Relation
- 11th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability. Safety, Reliability, Risk and Life-Cycle Performance of Structures and Infrastructures: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Structural Safety & Reliability (New York 16-20 June, 2013) p. 141-147
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/b16387-18
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Insofar as Black Swan events carry an "extreme impact," this derives not so much from their intrinsic importance or from their unexpectedness as from the often as extreme and unpredictable reaction, or overreaction, they generate. Most consequential development in human history stems not from extreme events, but from changes in thinking and behavior that are gradual, evolutionary, and often little-noticed as they occur. When an extreme event is elevated to Black Swan status by taking an equally extreme response to it, the response seems to become internalized, and getting people to re-evaluate through sensible risk analysis and risk communication is extremely difficult. As part of this, events that are aberrations are often unwisely taken instead to be harbingers-and continue to be so even in the fact of repeated disconfirming evidence. An examination of the 9/11 response in the US illustrates this point.
- Subject
- terrorism; risk communication; Taleb; Black Swan events; event analysis; public opinion
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1342138
- Identifier
- uon:28900
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781138000865
- Language
- eng
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