Black Swan author says present economy worse than Depression

Here's a video interview with The Black Swan author Nasim Nicholas Taleb and his mentor, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who say the current economic situation could be worse than the great depression.

"The banking system, the way we have it, is a monstrous giant built on feet of clay. And if that topples, we're gone."

Maybe that's why the US Gov't has pledged $7.7 Trillion (half of America's annual GDP to fix this). I wonder if it'll work?

(Via Homegrown Evolution)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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andyhavens

@/re Takuan: Half the people are dumber than average.
AirPillo

If I knew where to find a good piece that did more than just echo “be very scared” as so many, many sources are relegating themselves to doing, I would gladly share it.

(I do suggest links when I find ones that seem worthy, but this kind of subject isn’t that which I can offer that much in to begin with)

I’m just saying: This is the same stuff I was getting weary of seeing repeated ad nauseam here when I left for a vacation a week ago. It seems unusual to see it continuing, completely unchanged, when I return. The story’s the same but the faces are different.

All I mean to ask is whether this trend could be shifted towards something constructive. By now everyone reading knows that yes, lots of people think this is a really bad thing. I’d love to see more in the way of useful exposition and less in the way of things we already know being repeated to us.
- Antinous
  
  All I mean to ask is whether this trend could be shifted towards something constructive.
  
  Jane Austen would have a field day with this. “Constructive supposes endeavour.” The Boingers post stuff that they run into or people send them. It’s not a research institute. If you want to see things published, you have to find them.
Modusoperandi

andyhavens “Half the people are dumber than average.”
Worse, average isn’t all that smart.
Hyde

“I wonder if it’ll work?”

Lawl…that’s priceless.
Piers W

#34 Approximately half the people are dumber than the median, depending how many are exactly at it.

The average can be skewed either way by clumps of extremely dumb or extremely clever.
AirPillo

Oi, you’re making this entirely more confrontational than I’m intending (though if I’m failing at that, sorry for it).

I’m not making accusations or anything of the sort, but there is some logic behind what gets published (and what doesn’t) and I’d like to say that it would be just peachy if more of what has already been published in a somewhat different flavor were omitted.

I know I’m not contributing a solution, I don’t have one… but as the kind of person who is a) aware of the problem and b) in a position to lose my chances at a future entirely because of it, I’m inclined to ask if maybe an attempt could be made to do less harm to my blood pressure and select more in the way of fresh, new things to publish.

I feel like an arachnophobe finding a new spider-of-the week picture in their favorite newspaper every week. It was unpleasant enough for the first couple weeks but now it’s just grating, especially because being confronted with it time in and time out isn’t actually adding anything in the way of knowledge to this cynical little brain of mine.
- Antinous
  
  If it’s going to drive you nuts, just don’t read it. If I weren’t moderating, I’d only read about one out of every four posts. Some subjects bore me, some irritate me, some depress me. I just skim them so that I can understand the comment thread. I understand the compulsion to read every post, but it’s not worth the ulcer.
Modusoperandi

Piers W “The average can be skewed either way by clumps of extremely dumb or extremely clever.”
Keeping in mind, of course, that basic ignorance takes no work at all.
Modusoperandi

AirPillo; LOLspider
Takuan

look to your tribal affiliations. If you’ve none and no clan besides, get creating. Hard to get through bad times all alone.
AirPillo

#41:

My nightmares will be full of furry little legs tonight.
alowishus

So they’re terrified of big changes? I think that Taleb is just scared that people will stop buying his doomsday books. And Mandlebrot . . . he’s facing the biggest, scariest unknown. Maybe it’s time he came to grips with his mortality?

They’re selling fear.

And they’re total jackasses.
alowishus

Everybody is just running around in circles screaming because they have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen. But here’s the thing: We never know what’s going to happen. We just tend to remember it when disaster/chaos strikes.
macisaguy

So do I need to go learn how to farm so I’m able to support myself when the world falls apart?

Or should I just join the mainstream and pretend like nothing’s wrong?
Takuan

here’s whats going to happen: smart rich people will have no discomfort. Stupid rich people may.
Everyone else will cope. Because they have to. Because they always have.
Takuan

“change”; easy to say. The KT Event was “change”.
AirPillo

If it’s going to drive you nuts, just don’t read it. If I weren’t moderating, I’d only read about one out of every four posts. Some subjects bore me, some irritate me, some depress me. I just skim them so that I can understand the comment thread. I understand the compulsion to read every post, but it’s not worth the ulcer.

Well, that’s fair enough a solution to my problem, yes.

Part of my admittedly overtaxed and under-nourished brain (brought to you by Horizon Airlines!) just figured it might be a little constructive to say that “hey, I’m a reader, and this kind of post is starting to feel a little repetitive and bothersome”.

I very well may be totally wrong, but it seems a fair thing to say just in case I’m not. For example, I might not really find Xeni’s posts about Jasmina TeÅ¡anoviÄ‡ particularly appealing to my tastes, and might think I’d rather see something more interesting to me in their stead, but I wouldn’t complain about it because each one is saying something new that someone who finds that subject interesting would like to read.

With this subject it doesn’t seem there’s really much to be had in the way of anything new. It seems like the same old troubling song.

Maybe I’m just grumpy today and should go to bed?
Stefan Jones

Fear is the mind killer.
starfish and coffee

Black Swan is the new Millenium Bug!
Snakeophelia

I liked his book, but I despise this kind of fearmongering. Loaded terms like “Great Depression” do nothing but cause panic and cloud people’s minds.
Anonymous

The Black Swan isnt about fear, its about unforseeable occurrences with game changing consequences.

Saying this is all about fear is like shooting the doctor for giving the malady a name.
Kaleberg

I’m worried that the existing banking system WILL survive. They have an obsolete business model based on expensive information, communication and aggregation. It’s the 21st century. We don’t need a 19th century banking system. The Fed should go retail, and the bankers can get real jobs.
gollux

Well, here’s hoping we’re not pumping air into a slashed tire, hoping that it will inflate.

Don’t worry, be happy!
Stefan Jones

#5: The millenium bug was a real problem, which was professionally and successfully tackled.

The current mess is another very really and messy problem, but it can also be fixed, with the right smarts and dedication. (Although “fixed” =/= a return to easy credit and crass debt-driven consumerism.)

But in the meantime we’ll have to deal with lots of people selling fear.
Takuan

money is pretense, all we need is different pretense.
Modusoperandi

Takuan “change”; easy to say. The KT Event was “change”.
Change for the dinosaurs. Opportunity for our furry ancestors. Not much of anything for sharks, although the change in diet probably made them gassy and irritable for a million years or so.
Takuan

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3002
mouthyb

Takuan, I know where you could get a tumbrel and baskets… Do you know where to get a tricornered hat?
shmengie

water, bullets and gasoline: the new currency.
Takuan

just pin up my floppy innocent preacher-man hat.
Keeper of the Lantern

Well I’ve pledged 100 trillion to do my part. I’ll up it to a quadrillion if I have to: The only limitation is paper and ink for my printing press.
mouthyb

Sometimes I wonder exactly what will happen as a result of people figuring out exactly how they’ve been screwed.
Takuan

oh, they’ll first attack each other, then they’ll be tricked into going after some scapegoat group. There’ll be the usual elimination of rivals with show trials…pretty standard really.
Takuan

hum te dum de dum, jist polishin’ up the ole guillotine… la te da la la…. yep, sometime it don’t pay to be rich….
mouthyb

Yes, but in the event of true breakdowns, I hold a small, likely irrational hope that people will start looking at who was actually behind all this, instead of at the easy targets (other people who have been screwed.)

I’m tempted here to say something about humans, but I am, unfortuately, a bipedial mammal which uses tools.
Takuan

we could start now by preparing a list of those responsible,organizing a propaganda campaign and widely disseminating it via the web so it can’t be recalled or destroyed. Just use the Bill O’reilly tactics, the Limbaugh methods etc. Wonder how they will deal with their names being on the list?

Whoever gets the list out first before chaos hits, wins.

Vengeance is a meme.
imipak

Here’s Nasim Nicholas Talib on the BBC’s daily late-night current affairs flagship, “Newsnight”:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXPICWjFIo

Enjoy.
MarlboroTestMonkey7

All hail Mandelbrot!

Just sayin’
mercurytransit

Never before in history have we seen anything like this marketing opportunity for doomsayers.
Modusoperandi

Takuan “Just use the Bill O’reilly tactics, the Limbaugh methods etc. Wonder how they will deal with their names being on the list?”
Well, with the backlash mindset, they’ll probably exclaim “Help, help! I’m being oppressed!”. Then they’ll further distract their base with fiery rhetoric about some unpopular outgroup, like “the gays” or “the foreigners” or “those mitten-wearing, round bacon-eating, communistic Canadians”, all of which, incidentally, are out to destroy America. Then they’ll cash the checks, and the cycle will continue (/me starts signing “Circle of Life”).
Takuan

they can only feed on a relatively healthy organism.
When chaos hits, if their names are the last the mobs heard before communications networks failed, we will finally have them. The truly stupid are still a minority, after all McCain DID lose.
mark_p_s_2

I loved the “Well, here’s hoping we’re not pumping air into a slashed tire, hoping that it will inflate.” by Gollux
Modusoperandi

Takuan “The truly stupid are still a minority, after all McCain DID lose.”
No. If you take into account the tragically stupid who accidentally voted Obama, then the minority of dumb becomes, in the very least, a simple majority.
Modusoperandi

Takuan “The truly stupid are still a minority, after all McCain DID lose.”
No. If you take into account the tragically stupid who accidentally voted Obama then the minority of dumb becomes, in the very least, a simple majority.
Takuan

take what you can get or die of despair
Modusoperandi

Wups. It looks like the truly stupid double-post. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to fall down the stairs.
Antinous

Does anyone have a good recipe for black swan?

Roast black swan stuffed with prunes stuffed with black swan foie gras.
AirPillo

Attn: editors

While I respect that your intent is likely just to call the current economic situation as you see it… this fairly repetitive utterance of “this is really really bad and here’s someone saying so” is seriously starting to smell of fearmongering.

Deliberate or not it is nonetheless bothersome.

Can you folks please stop trying to hammer home this well-established point and instead start trying to give us a bounty of useful advice given that point? It’d be a lot more beneficial to the readers and would feel a lot less like a very uncharacteristic series of “told ya so”.
- Antinous
  
  Attn: AirPillo,
  
  Have you used Suggest A Link?
Stefan Jones

Does anyone have a good recipe for black swan?