[FRIAM] green swans

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -

Thanks for the reference (and promise of a book report?).

I take the meaning of "black swan" to be something more easily
recognized in hindsight, but once recognized, seeming to be obvious, but
also having a profound effect on the course of events.

I think this is identical to a bifurcation in the phase space of a
dynamical system?   Dynamical systems, whilst (usually?) entirely
deterministic, are also unprestateable.    The most efficient way to
predict the system's behaviour is to execute it.

The point of the Dave's book, as described in various reviews (e.g.
Goodreads) suggests that the topic is primarily a growing awareness from
hard-line capitalists that there are features of the reward space that
are outside of their usual criteria, and many of them are those USUALLY
reserved for bleeding-heart tree-huggers (aka Greens).  

There seems (in reviews) to be *some* cynicism suggesting that "green
swan" technologies or strategies are maybe only
relevant/important/necessary because of public sentiment (being *forced*
by public sentiment/popular support/political correctness) rather than
because (western/American?) capitalism's seemingly necessary exponential
growth is hitting the true limits to growth that make that seeming
exponential a logistic.

A lot of the criticism of the likes of Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg
has been that they "came late to the Green Party" (and many would
rightly say that Bloomberg really isn't even half there).  Both have
defended "better late than never"...

FWIW...  I did watch the "Planet of the Humans" which makes similar
accusations against the likes of Al Gore and Bill McKibben.   Not so
much that they came *late* to the party, but that they came *lite* to
it.  I suspect the film-maker (Moore just bankrolled it and put his name
on it, he didn't seem to contribute much to it's making) would be really
hard on "green swan Capitalists".    Off topic slightly, the movie did
have a lot of half-truths and out-of-context cheap shots, but the bottom
line (IMO) wasn't that far off.   Letting the same economic-industrial
stakeholders that maybe drove our ecology/climate right up to the edge
of a cliff, now take over and drive "Green Technologies"  might be the
definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results).   It was *more* than just judging
industrial sustainability movement as greenwashing... 

I'm curious what your (Dave's) stake in this is?  Do you feel that our
current capitalistic-industrial arc is patently unsustainable (and on
what time scale)?  And do you believe that in spite of the differences
you (and many others) might have with
bleeding-heart-liberal-tree-huggers, that maybe there is more common
ground than you recognized?  Something to work across the aisle (gulf)
on?   Or are the fundamental sensibilities of "the opposition" too
distorted?  

- Steve

> Just ordered, hardcover (two weeks before it gets here probably) and kindle (will read later today.) Looks very interesting but will send review later.
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Green-Swans-Coming-Regenerative-Capitalism/dp/1732439125/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1588678839&sr=8-1-spons
>
> "If Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Black Swans" are problems that take us exponentially toward breakdown, then "Green Swans" are solutions that take us exponentially toward breakthrough. The success--and survival--of humanity now depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second."
>
> davew
>
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