COVID, black swans and gray rhinos
“black swan,” used to describe high-profile, but hard-to-predict and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations The phrase is sometimes used to describe the economic meltdown of 2008. Because of their character, it is suggested there’s not much we can do to avert them.
Yet a recent article in the world’s best magazine, The Economist of London, challenges the focus of many pundits and analysts on black swans.
“This kind of thinking makes things worse by encouraging fatalism, rejecting accountability, and giving the nod to short-termism and willful ignorance.”
We should be thinking more, The Economist suggests, about “gray rhinos.”
In the world of government and policy, gray rhinos are “highly likely, high-impact risks that are a matter of when, not if,” the article states.
Gray rhinos are a “metaphor for missing the big, obvious thing that’s coming at you.”
https://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2021/01/kelman-covid-black-swans-gray-rhinos.aspx?m=1
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