MENTAL MODEL · M1920

Black Swan Event

BusinessHigh supportManagement

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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

An extreme event that is unpredictable, has a major impact, and after the fact people fabricate explanations that it "could have been predicted." - Examples: 2008 financial crisis, 9/11 terrorist attacks, COVID-19 pandemic. These events all have: low probability, high impact, post-hoc explainability. - Scaffold role: Breaker of the illusion of certainty. - We are used to predicting the future based on past experience, but what truly changes the world is often the "never happened before" things. Remember: what you don't know is more important than what you know.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

Breaker of the illusion of certainty. - We are used to predicting the future based on past experience, but what truly changes the world is often the "never happened before" things. Remember: what you don't know is more important than what you know.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Taleb's definition: extremely rare, huge impact, and seemingly explainable after the fact, with three characteristics: 'unpredictable, heavy impact, narrative-driven'.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

In risk management, use redundancy and option-like positioning for tail risks, avoiding underestimating extremes with Gaussian distribution.

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Source support: Explicit

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zh.wikipedia.orghttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%91%E5%A4%A9%E9%B5%9D%E7%90%86%E8%AB%96ZH · Explicit
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