Taleb’s mathematics are complicated, but his conclusions are not:

1. Small probabilities are incomputable, and the smaller they are, the harder they are to calculate.

2. Present models lead small probabilities to be underestimated.

3. These models cause the likelihood of horrible events with small probability to be even more underestimated.

4. Because of globalization and the fact that all markets and countries are interlinked, the economic cost of natural catastrophe rises in a nonlinear fashion.

5. If a person calculates the probability of a rare event and his life depends on that rare event not happening – for instance, a nuclear meltdown – he’s already underestimating the probability of that event.