Just wanted to note it as it reminded me of Arie’s interest in neurological impact of decision-making processes.

Must be the possibility of a tie-in somewhere.

There is a lot of research about how group failure in business - peer pressure, entrenched past learning, unwillingness to dissent with authority - contributes to inability to see what needs to be done - or sadly more common, to see but be unable to do anything. One way out of this is mandating far higher diversity in companies (corporate hierarchies typically “weed out” divergents from the norm)

Re Black Swans, its also a fascinating read, but as someone who has designed many scenarios and simulations over the years I’d note that the number of potential Very Big x Very Improbable events is usually very large in any complex environment and considering only a fraction of them would lead to complete analysis paralysis for any real world use.

It is, for example, remotely possible that a major and fatal terrorist atrocity will re-occur in London. Shall I then, therefore, not set up my office there?

You thus wind up taking a pragmatic view, and that view by necessity leaves out the Black Swans. The key is to find where the main “tipping points” are and test for those. (I also love “reversible decisions ;-) )

Every so often one gets it wrong, but what the Black Swan thesis ignores is the 99.9% confidence limit of millions of white swans that work out just fine