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Comment by Gwypaas | Hacker News Reader

> The definition of a black swan event.

An earthquake and tsunami in the country who coined the term is now a "Black Swan event" to make an attempt at painting the nuclear power plants failure in favorable light.

Even more entertaining is that Fukushima lead to widespread changes across the industry around independent core cooling and gas filtration.

The regulators found systemic deficiencies in the industry, but let's roll that back!

As an example: A nuclear reactor in Sweden had a severe incident in 2006 when many of the "defense in depth" layers had been accidentally removed through freak occurrences and upgrades. Thus independent core cooling was not a Black Swan event, it was systemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...

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> An earthquake and tsunami in the country who coined the term is now a "Black Swan event" to make an attempt at painting the nuclear power plants failure in favorable light.

How many earthquakes do you know that move an entire island by 2.4 meters?

How many 14-meter tsunamis have there been?

"A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences"

> The regulators found systemic deficiencies in the industry, but let's roll that back!

Of course that is not what I'm saying. But do let the FUD roll.

The Indian Ocean one less than ten years prior?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_a...

Following that multiple studies showed that Fukushima could get hit by +15m tsunamis and suggested heightening the sea wall.

Now you are trying to redefine Black Swan to fit your narrative.

Take what the author said about COVID-19.

> According to Taleb, as it was expected with great certainty that a global pandemic would eventually take place, the COVID-19 pandemic is not a black swan, but is considered to be a white swan; such an event has a major effect, but is compatible with statistical properties.

Similarly, there is a great certainty that a +15m tsunami will hit any of the existing nuclear power plants in Japan. Fukushima was not a Black Swan, simply human negligence.

> Now you are trying to redefine Black Swan to fit your narrative.

Ah yes. It's my bad. "The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900" can never be classified as a Black Swan event, and I apologize for my mistake.

As for tsunami,

"The sea walls in several cities had been built to protect against tsunamis of much lower heights. Also, many people caught in the tsunami thought they were on high enough ground to be safe. According to a special committee on disaster prevention designated by the Japanese government, the tsunami protection policy had been intended to deal with only tsunamis that had been scientifically proved to occur repeatedly."

My apologies, this wasn't a Black Swan event either. Totally predictable, and not beyond what's normally expected.

> According to Taleb, as it was expected with great certainty that a global pandemic would eventually take place,

It's funny how all Nostradamuses "prove" their vague predictions only after something occurs.

What was it said about black swan events?

"The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight."

>How many 14-meter tsunamis have there been?

Since 1900 there have been at least 12 megatsunami with a height up to 1/2 a kilometre.

Wait, what? A tsunami 500m high is not something you’d miss.

524m, 5 dead. In 1958.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_earthquake_a...

Note that this particular megatsunami is completely irrelevant when we're talking about Fukushima. Because context matters. You can't just say "oh we had 500 meter megatsunamis, Fukushima should have protected against those".

The one you linked happened:

- in a narrow bay

- with a dual-slide that involved both a huge rockfall, and a huge release of sediment connected to a glacier breaking off

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It's also the first time I've heard of this event, and.... Just wow. Never thought it would be possible

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Edit: According to Wikipedia all megatsunamis recorded since 1900 were caused by landslides: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatsunami Only some of the landslides were caused by earthquakes.

The point being, freak events are not nearly as freak as they are being made out to be.

Edit: but I agree with the "wow". I can't even imagine what a wall of water that tall would look like. That is just so outside normal experience.

> The point being, freak events are not nearly as freak as they are being made out to be.

They are extremely rare.

12 megatsunamis in 123 years spread over the entire surface of the earth.

OK so (a) this is a very different event to what we typically think of as a tsunami.

And (b) holy crap that's terrifying.

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