Part Three: Those Gray Swans of Extremism, Chapter 14: From Mediocristan to Extremism, and Back Summary and Analysis

Summary

The author claimed that luck had played a major role when Microsoft software took the lion's share of the market, while Apple software was left with a relatively small piece, even though the Apple software was obviously superior. He extended luck to virtually every human endeavor in which there are big winners and many more losers, including celebrity, wealth distribution, religious ideas, political opinions, and the success or downfall of cities and entire civilizations.

Taleb explained that capitalism maximized luck, whereas socialism minimized it in favor of stability. As a result, capitalistic countries, and especially the United States, have been producing innovations. Socialistic countries followed the innovations but hardly ever came up with original...