Unthinkable ((new))

Despite COVID-19, we are still not ready for the next pandemic. Why? Because the next one won't look like the last one. It might be a fungus that adapts to human body temperature. It might be a prion that spreads through the water supply. It might be a virus with a 50% mortality rate and a 30-day incubation period. We can't think about this because the logistics of surviving it—permanent masks, remote work, mass graves—are too horrific to plan for in peacetime.

In the realm of probability, the unthinkable is often personified by the "Black Swan"—a concept popularized by risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb. For centuries, Europeans believed all swans were white; it was an incontrovertible truth confirmed by millions of observations. The sighting of a single black swan in Australia annihilated that "truth." Unthinkable

Most people ask, "What are the odds?" This is the wrong question. The correct question is, "What are the consequences?" If the consequence of an event is the end of your current way of life, it doesn't matter if the probability is 1% or 0.001%. You plan for it. You buy home insurance not because you think your house will burn down, but because if it does, the cost is ruinous. Treat the unthinkable like a fire extinguisher: you hope to never use it, but you never leave the house without a plan. Despite COVID-19, we are still not ready for

Nassim Nicholas Taleb famously described Black Swans—high-impact, rare, and retrospectively predictable events. Note the word retrospectively . After 9/11, everyone said, "Of course, it was obvious." After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, geologists pointed out the decades of warning signs. But before the event, anyone who suggested the scenario was labeled a paranoid conspiracy theorist. The unthinkable is the cost of doing business in a complex world. It might be a fungus that adapts to human body temperature

Frequent use of strong language, primarily the "F-word" and various religious profanities.