The difference between Black Swans, Flying Green Monkeys, and Unicorns
What is the difference between a Black Swan, a Flying Green Monkey, and a Unicorn? First off, a Black Swan is an unexpected event that is rationalized to be obvious in retrospect. It's based on theory elaborated in a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The most important distinction that Black Swans have apart from Flying Green Monkeys and Unicorns is that Black Swans actually exist whereas FGMs and Unicorns reasonably cannot. The term Flying Green Monkeys refer to a pessimists fantasy about a highly improbable event or situation that might happen. Often they are paranoid delusions based on partial or incorrect facts and the actual probability that something may happen. They are related to Black Swans in that they live in the land of chaos and the unexpected (extremestan in Taleb's terms) but they are distinctly different because they are seen as a negative catastrophic event that can be planned for. To use a traditional statis