4 ms·

There were widespread lockdowns during the 1918 pandemic and quarantines are a practice about as old and storied as urbanized human settlement. They’re not blac

There were widespread lockdowns during the 1918 pandemic and quarantines are a practice about as old and storied as urbanized human settlement. They’re not black swans any more than the pandemics themselves. Taleb has also talked about this quite a lot recently.

icedchai 6y ago
The voluntary shutdown of almost all major economies was definitely unexpected. Nobody alive today has ever witnessed anything like this, on this scale, before. You can debate the academic definition, but it's definitely a black swan in my book.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  We’re not talking about academic definitions, but explicitly what the guy who invented the concept has said and how he’s used that understanding. Again, in his book, he says that pandemics are not black swans. Taleb used this knowledge to advise a fund that saw massive returns betting that all of this would happen: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/taleb-advised-universa-tail-risk-fund-returned-3-600-in-march https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/taleb-advised-univer...
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yes, the pandemic itself is not the "black swan." Pandemics have happened before. But none of them caused a reaction like this. None of them caused voluntary shutdowns of all the world's major economies at the same time.
- klyrs 6y ago
  It's predictable if you think about it for a few minutes. 1. It's hard to keep outbreaks localized, thanks to widely available air travel -- that's pretty new compared to 1918, but extremely common knowledge. 2. The standard procedure, for centuries now, has been lockdown / quarantine. 1+2=widespread lockdowns
- Fricken 6y ago
  It's the way the whole western world responded in lockstep. And then did it again in solidarity with BLM. Marshall MacLuhan in the 1960s predicted that with the rise of "peer to peer electronic media" we would all be marching to the beat of the tribal drum. Here we are.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
There were widespread closures of public accommodations, but there were no efforts made in 1918 to keep people from going outside or stop them from visiting friends and family.

icedchai 6y ago

The voluntary shutdown of almost all major economies was definitely unexpected. Nobody alive today has ever witnessed anything like this, on this scale, before. You can debate the academic definition, but it's definitely a black swan in my book.

claudeganon 6y ago
We’re not talking about academic definitions, but explicitly what the guy who invented the concept has said and how he’s used that understanding. Again, in his book, he says that pandemics are not black swans. Taleb used this knowledge to advise a fund that saw massive returns betting that all of this would happen: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/taleb-advised-universa-tail-risk-fund-returned-3-600-in-march https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/taleb-advised-univer...
- icedchai 6y ago
  Yes, the pandemic itself is not the "black swan." Pandemics have happened before. But none of them caused a reaction like this. None of them caused voluntary shutdowns of all the world's major economies at the same time.
klyrs 6y ago
It's predictable if you think about it for a few minutes. 1. It's hard to keep outbreaks localized, thanks to widely available air travel -- that's pretty new compared to 1918, but extremely common knowledge. 2. The standard procedure, for centuries now, has been lockdown / quarantine. 1+2=widespread lockdowns
Fricken 6y ago
It's the way the whole western world responded in lockstep. And then did it again in solidarity with BLM. Marshall MacLuhan in the 1960s predicted that with the rise of "peer to peer electronic media" we would all be marching to the beat of the tribal drum. Here we are.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

There were widespread closures of public accommodations, but there were no efforts made in 1918 to keep people from going outside or stop them from visiting friends and family.