PowerSwitch

I know you can't really see them coming, but wouldn't it be a beautiful and fitting end to the planet, if when they turn on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN next month, it as some fear, creates a planet gobbling black hole!

Hehehe. Imagine it! Mankind steps up to the podium and shouts "Look at me! Look how clever I am"! In the following seconds he flicks the switch, and the machine creates a singularity of infinite density, that falls to the centre of the planet and starts consuming matter and growing exponentially... I would imagine it would be much like when you turned and old CRT telly off and the imaged turned into a single point of light in the centre and slowly faded.

From the emptyness that was left behind, we may one last voice echoing round what used to be our atmospher..... "Oooops."

"Three, two, one, activate. Err ... oops ..."

I know you can't really see them coming, but wouldn't it be a beautiful and fitting end to the planet, if when they turn on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN next month, it as some fear, creates a planet gobbling black hole!

Hehehe. Imagine it! Mankind steps up to the podium and shouts "Look at me! Look how clever I am"! In the following seconds he flicks the switch, and the machine creates a singularity of infinite density, that falls to the centre of the planet and starts consuming matter and growing exponentially... I would imagine it would be much like when you turned and old CRT telly off and the imaged turned into a single point of light in the centre and slowly faded.

From the emptyness that was left behind, we may one last voice echoing round what used to be our atmospher..... "Oooops."

I'd laugh (very quietly as I'd be the size of an atom at this point).

Douglas Adams-esque.

Now that it has been described, it can by definition not be a true Black Swan. Besides, I've talked to a couple of people in physics and they say that the forces involved are far below what's required to form a true black hole.

Nice scare story though - sharper than the anti-matter in some book by Dan Brown.

Yeah, pretty damn unlikely, but would be a bloody great end though would it not! As said, very Adamsesque!

Hehehehehe. The thought just tickled me.... zzzzzzaaap. silence.........

I?m not very happy with the black swan theory. Maybe my understanding is lacking, the theory goes high impact events are unpredicted, unexpected, without precedent. It follows that the more important and consequential an event is the less likely it is to be predicted. Things like 9/11, the collapse of the Berlin Wall etc were black swan events. This means that we can?t forecast important things and people talking about peak oil and its consequences are likely wrong.

Here?s my problem ? who?s doing the prediction!! I?ve lost count the number of times I?d read in the newspaper about unexpected events, contrary to analysts, contrary to the experts etc... for situations that to me were totally expected. The unexpected increase in the number of people living in fuel poverty is a recent example.

For example a peak in 2010 followed by rapid decline is not currently predicted by mainstream opinions. When it happens people will throw their hands in the air in shock, how, why, where did this black swan come from!? In my opinion this does not deserve to be a black swan event as whilst 98% of people didn?t expect it ? some did.

Same with 9/11 ? some people did expect a massive domestic US attack...

How does the black swan theory deal with 99.99% of people not expecting something by 0.01% of people fully expecting it on the basis of solid reasoning? Two years ago I was dead certain that the housing market was going to crash harder and faster than it every had before ? at the time that was certainly not mainstream opinion yet here were are, the market is falling faster than its ever fallen before. If we lose 50% in real terms over the next two years is that a black swan event? Certainly not from where I?m sitting.

Come on! Everyone over the age of about 30 has been just waiting for the housing crash. My place of work is full of people that have been sitting on their cash waiting for the crash. Most of them were expecting it about 3-4 years ago though. Housing is cyclical. Hardly a black swan event!

The berlin wall - an event, but what caused it? Underlying sentiment. That underlying sentiment isn't a black swan event is it?

Peak oil will cause a black swan event perhaps, but we won't know what it is until it happens, and it changes everything.

n.b. I haven't read Taleb, and and only have what I have read on PS and a discussion with a Taleb fan at work to inform me of what a BS even is!

This is a black swan, and the owner of the boat I took the photo from expected it to turn up every day to be fed. Does that disprove the theory?

clv101 wrote:How does the black swan theory deal with 99.99% of people not expecting something by 0.01% of people fully expecting it on the basis of solid reasoning?

Taleb does point out that a black swan is only such to those who didn't expect it.
To the aboriginees a white swan might have been quite a surprise.
(Are there white swans in Australia?)

It already is a black hole -- that's gobbled up an awful lot of funding that could have been used to solve a lot of the existing problems we have today rather than finding ways to create new ones.

biffvernon wrote:

clv101 wrote:How does the black swan theory deal with 99.99% of people not expecting something by 0.01% of people fully expecting it on the basis of solid reasoning?

Taleb does point out that a black swan is only such to those who didn't expect it.
To the aboriginees a white swan might have been quite a surprise.
(Are there white swans in Australia?)

Yeps. So SunnyJim would not be entitled to a wimpy "Ooops", but to the much more potent "I told you so..."

mobbsey wrote:It already is a black hole -- that's gobbled up an awful lot of funding that could have been used to solve a lot of the existing problems we have today rather than finding ways to create new ones.

Hear hear Mobbsey.

I don't go along with the argument that funding on physics research could be better spent on something else. There are a great many things that we spend money on that are less important. Guns, fast cars, drugs, lacy underwear, golf, take your pick. Fundamental science research should come second only to food and shelter.

biffvernon wrote:I don't go along with the argument that funding on physics research could be better spent on something else. There are a great many things that we spend money on that are less important. Guns, fast cars, drugs, lacy underwear, golf, take your pick. Fundamental science research should come second only to food and shelter.

Totally agree.