What is the power of the unknown? What can be the impact of invisibles? Well, the answer is in the realm of the unknown, according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Black Swan, philosopher and expert on risk engineering, who is now penning his thoughts on living in a world we do not understand.

The management guru has no accurate answer but, based on the current risk environment, a plethora of clues on the shape of things to come. At times, revolutions like the Internet are triggered off by intentions other than initially thought of, he said. For instance, he said it was former US president Ronald Reagan’s obsession with the destruction of the Soviet Union that sparked the Internet revolution.

Taleb believes that nation-states, which he describes as modern inventions, are very unstable, especially in the Western world. Already, as he pointed out, six million people are unemployed in the US and the centre of the world is moving away from the West.

Addressing the widespread intellectual ferment over the stability of the current financial system, Taleb hinted that governments would be better off relying on positive revenues like household savings. The banking system is still weak and Europe and the US are hit hard by deficits. In fact, according to Taleb, the US with its high GDP and high spending is far more fragile than India and Russia. The solution, Taleb said, lies in breaking the back of the debt system.