Sure.
A black swan (they were unknown to western science until they were "discovered" to exist in Australia in the 18th century or so) is representative of a supposed extremely unlikely outcome of a series of probabilistic events, or combination thereof, such as rolling dice 4 times and getting 12 each time, or similar. I think 12 x 4 has a probable outcome of roughly once in some 20,736 rolls. 1/(1/12)^4. A very black swan indeed. Normally we wouldn't worry about anything with such small odds of happening. We drive to work every day at a 1:4000 or so chance of dying on the freeway within the next year with little more than an occasional thought, and then only if the weather happens to be very horrible. Very few even slow down. But if ice appears on the road, the odds drop to maybe 1 in 2000 that day and maybe we stay home. Why stay home, because even though the chance is still small, we might actually die this very day, which we realize is a high consequence event, regardless of the somewhat slim chance of occurring, so we stay at home. The point being that the high consequence of a black swan, no matter how small the probability, warrant taking proactive steps to avoid meeting one.
The biggest problem with black swans is that we base much of their probabilities on very sparse data, so much so, that when just one happens, we have to revise the odds to a lower number. Let's say nukes were once 100% safe, until the first accident happened. Since then we think we got smarter and the odds have been getting better, because now the accidents per hour operated is lower. But do we really know if the odds depend on our time of experience operating then? Or does it depend on the ginger counters maximum reading before it gets pegged. Do airline accidents depend on all the miles the airplanes flew last year, or does an accident depend on how Boeing changed their MCAS design and didn't tell anyone. Why are we basing our predictions of flight safety on the number of miles flown in the last 20yrs when that didn't predict the fate of Lion Air or Etheopia Air death dives. Maybe we should have based it on the number of QAQC inspectors at Boeings assembly plants.
And what do we really know about how complex systems work, or how 2 or more of them really interact in the wild, like 5G and flight radar altimeters for example? Most of what we know about probability is based on knowledge acquired under highly controlled laboratory conditions, or at the poker table. In the meantime, we walk around thinking we're safe, because the numbers tell us so, even though we have a marginal understanding of quite a lot if it at best. It's like medicine. We know a lot about what drugs will do, but relatively nothing about what combining any two of them will do. A lot still left to learn. Probability is a numerical phenomenon that deludes us into a certain way of thinking that we are safe the same way fish think the shark won't eat them if they swim in schools.
Sorry for the rant.
Recommended (fascinating) reading: "The Black Swan and the impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Taleb "Black swans are much more common then we think"
A black swan to a turkey is a white swan to the butcher ... and to Boeing.
![[glasses]](/data/assets/smilies/glasses.gif "[glasses] [glasses]")
Just traded in my OLD subtlety...![[tongue]](/data/assets/smilies/tongue.gif "[tongue] [tongue]")