Building a Black Swan-robust society

New Statesman has an excerpt of the new-for-the-paperback postscript from Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan, which book was probably the most interesting one I’ve read in quite some time (if you can handle some of the ridiculous posturing).

An economist would find it inefficient to carry two lungs and two kidneys — consider the costs involved in transporting these heavy items across the savannah. Such optimisation would, eventually, kill you, after the first accident, the first “outlier”. Also, consider that if we gave Mother Nature to economists, it would dispense with individual kidneys — since we do not need them all the time, it would be more “efficient” if we sold ours and used a central kidney on a time-share basis. You could also lend your eyes at night, since you do not need them to dream.

Read through to the end for Taleb’s list of ten principles for a Black Swan-robust society.

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