Dave - Thanks for the reference (and promise of a book report?).
I take the meaning of "black swan" to be something more easily recognized in hindsight, but once recognized, seeming to be obvious, but also having a profound effect on the course of events. I think this is identical to a bifurcation in the phase space of a dynamical system? Dynamical systems, whilst (usually?) entirely deterministic, are also unprestateable. The most efficient way to predict the system's behaviour is to execute it. The point of the Dave's book, as described in various reviews (e.g. Goodreads) suggests that the topic is primarily a growing awareness from hard-line capitalists that there are features of the reward space that are outside of their usual criteria, and many of them are those USUALLY reserved for bleeding-heart tree-huggers (aka Greens). There seems (in reviews) to be *some* cynicism suggesting that "green swan" technologies or strategies are maybe only relevant/important/necessary because of public sentiment (being *forced* by public sentiment/popular support/political correctness) rather than because (western/American?) capitalism's seemingly necessary exponential growth is hitting the true limits to growth that make that seeming exponential a logistic. A lot of the criticism of the likes of Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg has been that they "came late to the Green Party" (and many would rightly say that Bloomberg really isn't even half there). Both have defended "better late than never"... FWIW... I did watch the "Planet of the Humans" which makes similar accusations against the likes of Al Gore and Bill McKibben. Not so much that they came *late* to the party, but that they came *lite* to it. I suspect the film-maker (Moore just bankrolled it and put his name on it, he didn't seem to contribute much to it's making) would be really hard on "green swan Capitalists". Off topic slightly, the movie did have a lot of half-truths and out-of-context cheap shots, but the bottom line (IMO) wasn't that far off. Letting the same economic-industrial stakeholders that maybe drove our ecology/climate right up to the edge of a cliff, now take over and drive "Green Technologies" might be the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results). It was *more* than just judging industrial sustainability movement as greenwashing... I'm curious what your (Dave's) stake in this is? Do you feel that our current capitalistic-industrial arc is patently unsustainable (and on what time scale)? And do you believe that in spite of the differences you (and many others) might have with bleeding-heart-liberal-tree-huggers, that maybe there is more common ground than you recognized? Something to work across the aisle (gulf) on? Or are the fundamental sensibilities of "the opposition" too distorted? - Steve > Just ordered, hardcover (two weeks before it gets here probably) and kindle > (will read later today.) Looks very interesting but will send review later. > > https://www.amazon.com/Green-Swans-Coming-Regenerative-Capitalism/dp/1732439125/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1588678839&sr=8-1-spons > > "If Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Black Swans" are problems that take us > exponentially toward breakdown, then "Green Swans" are solutions that take us > exponentially toward breakthrough. The success--and survival--of humanity now > depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second." > > davew > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ... FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/