[ExI] Avoiding bad black swan events/was Re: extropy-chat Digest, Vol 111, Issue 15

[Dan]

On Wednesday, December 12, 2012 9:53 AM Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> If we understand this potential problem we can take steps to mitigate it.

That's about the same for any problem, of course. :)

> The harder problem is taking steps to mitigate "black swan" events 
> that we have no idea might happen at all.
>
> A large number of combustion turbines and a year's supply of oil or
> methane to fire them might be a prudent backup.

I don't disagree. I think the problem is mainly looking for the one optimal solution and then enforcing it top-down as opposed to just letting people make bottom up choices on what energy sources they'll use. I think the top-down approach invites "black swans" because it makes for a one size fits all solution, so if the solution fails and its back up fails too, then you get total system interruption if not collapse.

By the way, speaking of "black swans," have you read Taleb's latest book, _Antifragility_? I'm most of the way through the audio version of it. Some interesting ideas and, of course, some stuff I'd disagree on, but not by much. I enjoyed his earlier books too, though _Fooled by Randomness_ and _The Black Swan_ seemed like the same book just rewritten. Maybe I'll have to go back to them to see if this is just my impression now because I went through so many years ago.


Regards,

Dan
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