The Coronavirus and a Deflationary Crisis | Hacker News Reader

The Coronavirus and a Deflationary Crisis

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13 points_7fvc7 comments

"Nobody could have imagined the Coronavirus crisis. But the scope and damage are enormous. The Black Swan event is here. Nassim Taleb calls it a White Swan, an expected pandemic that will eventually happen. You can buy his book to learn this distinction."

I'm confused by this comment. If Phuoc Do, the author of this blog post, disagrees with Taleb about what a "Black Swan" event is, what does he think it means instead, and why is he citing Taleb?

Author here. The Coronavirus impact on the economy is a surprise for me. Hence I view it as a Black Swan. Taleb calls it a White Swan. Maybe, he foresees it. The definition depends on the observer.

Taleb is an idiot.

Black Swan has no real meaning.

But if Black Swan did have a meaning it's not things that are a surprise.

The fact people call the Coronavirus a Black Swan shows how useless the idea of a Black Swan is.

But then it has no meaning, so maybe that's the way the language has moved and you are right. Now Black Swan are when things we don't predict happen. Like a server going down or a pandemic.

I think you need to reconsider who the idiot is

Thanks, I see what you mean. It's been a few years since I read that, and I'm certainly not well positioned to speak for, or about, the book.

Pardon me for becoming bogged down in details -- I take it that the post is about deflation risk, not what was or wasn't predicted about _this_ pandemic.

"We are heading into a deflationary crisis" is a pretty compelling prediction, and I have now set off to try to work out which leading indicators of this would be informative.

> "Nobody could have imagined the Coronavirus crisis. But the scope and damage are enormous.

What?

I saw the SARS-1 panic in 2002/2003. Same as SARS-2 now. No imagination needed.

The 2002–2004 SARS outbreak was nowhere near as consequential as this one. It's an entirely different situation.

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