The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

History is a construct...Any point of entry is possible and all choices are arbitrary. Still there are definitive moments...We can look at these events and say that after them things were never the same again.

History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance.

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history’s choices are not made for the benefit of humans. There is absolutely no proof that human well-being inevitably improves as history rolls along.

I know that history is going to be dominated by an improbable event, I just don’t know what that event will be.

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

History is the consequence not only of people’s actions, but also of their forgetfulness.

Predictions are hard, especially of the future

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history’s choices are not made for the benefit of humans.

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

The idea that large historical events are determined by luck is profoundly shocking, although it is demonstrably true.

There's a lot of randomness in the decisions that people make.

History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes. Not only that, but history is what is called a ‘level two’ chaotic system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. Level one chaos is chaos that does not react to predictions about it. The weather, for example, is a level one chaotic system. Though it is influenced by myriad factors, we can build computer models that take more and more of them into consideration, and produce better and better weather forecasts. Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, and therefore can never be predicted accurately. Markets, for example, are a level two chaotic system. What will happen if we develop a computer program that forecasts with 100 per cent accuracy the price of oil tomorrow? The price of oil will immediately react to the forecast, which would consequently fail to materialise. If the current price of oil is $90 a barrel, and the infallible computer program predicts that tomorrow it will be $100, traders will rush to buy oil so that they can profit from the predicted price rise. As a result, the price will shoot up to $100 a barrel today rather than tomorrow. Then what will happen tomorrow? Nobody knows.