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Confidential: The Black Swan Event

Human beings are sticklers for order. Most of us can't stand the thought of
living in an unpredictable world. Every scientific advancement that we've
made, every political system that we live under, and every war that we've
ever fought, has been done in the name of exerting more control over our
environment, or over other people. Unfortunately, the world is an utterly
chaotic place and any attempt to achieve total security and predictability
will be about as successful as trying to grab a handful of water.

However, that doesn't stop us from thinking that we have a handle on

things. Everyone likes to think that they can predict the future by simply
following past trends, but that is only partially true. The reality of the matter
is quite different. Most of the events that had the greatest impact on history
seemed to come out of nowhere. After the fact, there will be people who
will say that it was bound to happen, and will point to the damning evidence
that was available to them before the event, but hindsight is 20/20. These
types of events are often referred to as black swans.

In 2007, statistician and risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote what
would become one of the most influential books in recent memory. The
Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable perfectly describes the
chaotic nature of our world, and how the events that have the most impact
are the ones that we never see coming. More importantly, he explains how
after the fact, people convince themselves that these events were totally
predictable, even when they clearly weren't.

One of his most famous examples is that of the Thanksgiving turkey. Try to
picture yourself as a turkey on a farm. Every single day for as long as you
can remember, the farmer feeds you. He gives you everything you need,
every day, for months and even years. Being the turkey, you can only
assume that the farmer has your best interest at heart, because it's all
you've ever known. From the day you were born until this very moment, the
farmer has always cared for your well being.

Then he grabs you by the neck and slits your throat.

To the turkey, this makes no sense. This devastating event was the most
shocking moment in that turkey's life, and there was never any reason for

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him to consider it a possibility. For the turkey, this is a black swan event,
but for the farmer it is nothing of the sort. He knew from the very beginning
that the turkey had only one purpose in life, and that was to be dinner.

With that in mind we should ask ourselves, what kinds of scary events may
be coming our way? We have to consider the possibility that we are, in fact,
the turkey, and if we are the turkey, we have to figure out who our farmer
is. We have to step outside of our ordinary lives, and recognize threats that
we hadn't considered before.

Now technically speaking, if someone has considered the possibility of a

black swan event, it ceases to be a black swan. By the strictest definition of
the word, a black swan is something that no one saw coming. On the other
hand though, if someone successfully predicts a black swan event, and
nobody believes that person, the result is the same. All of those
disbelievers are going to feel the wrath of that event, which they would
have anyway.

These are the kinds of events that I'm going to share with you. The ones
that some of us know are plausible, but most people either don't know
about them, or are otherwise unconcerned. Thus for all practical purposes,
these events are still black swans.

As Donald Rumsfeld once put it, As we know, there are known knowns;
there are things we know we know. We also know there are known
unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknownsthe ones we don't know we don't
know. Regardless of your opinion on some of his political actions and
beliefs, that statement could perfectly summarize the precarious nature of
life on Earth, and the mysterious threats we face as human beings. So with
that said, let's delve into a few of the known unknowns that could adversely
effect our lives.

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Financial Collapse
It's well known by now that America has some serious financial problems.
While the unemployment rate appears to have gone down a bit, most of the
jobs that we've recovered from the crash of 2007/08 are part-time,
minimum wage jobs. Our government's debt is still going through the roof,
and when you add in privately held liabilities, America holds an astounding
$60 trillion in debt. We also still have over 40 million Americans on the
food stamp rolls.

Then there's the bubble factor to consider. The stock market has
surpassed the heights of the dotcom days, and housing prices and rent
have gone above and beyond what we saw before the real estate crash. So
no matter what the talking heads on TV tell you, we're still in really bad
shape, and by all appearances our country is on an unsustainable financial
path.

The only question is, how will it all end? While it seems that most
Americans are perfectly content with believing that our economy is
recovering, they are in for a rude awakening. We could see these bubbles
deflate, which would basically amount to a repeat of 2008, but a true black
swan event would involve something that even the critics of our economy
would find shocking.

You could see several major economies ditch the U.S. dollar as the world's
reserve currency, which would cause the prices of just about everything to
skyrocket at home. Or some country out there might try to devalue their
currency to make their exports more competitive. This would lead to a
currency war where every nation has to inflate their money until that money
is worthless. Or perhaps the United States will have to default on its debts,
or simply inflate the dollar until those debts are more affordable, which
would amount to the same thing. In that case, the debt would disappear,
but the cost would be shared by every American who is unfortunate enough
to have left their savings in dollars.

What would really blow away every mainstream economist is if a country

like China or Russia tried to adopt a gold-backed currency. Doing so might
also cause a worldwide currency collapse, as everyone reacts to the writing
on the wall all at once, and tries to ditch their fiat bills for real assets.

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In reality though, there's a chance that all of these scenarios will play out
together. When it comes to financial calamities there are often multiple
factors involved, and it's very possible that we could see a domino effect
here. For instance, if the U.S. creates too much inflation, it could cause
many nations to ditch the dollar as the world's reserve currency, while
simultaneously causing a currency war; and when every nation's currency
is devalued, it will be more economical for them to adopt a gold-backed
currency. Now that's the stuff that black swans are made of.

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Permanent Blackout
Most Americans don't like to think about the fragility of their electrical grid,
or much less think about the ways it could fall apart. But the truth is, our
grid is a highly interconnected system that is vulnerable to systemic failure.
It's the kind of system where a small failure in one spot could cause the
rest of the network to fail and leave millions of people without power for
days or weeks. What's worse is the fact that our whole standard of living is
reliant upon our electricity. If the grid were to go down long enough,
everything would grind to a halt and millions could die.

The chief threats to our power grid come in two forms. They'll either be
natural or man-made. It's possible that the sun could emit a massive solar
flare that would overload our electrical grid and destroy essential pieces of
equipment that could take years to replace. This disaster would likely be
global in scope.

The other possibility could involve a foreign attack of some kind. Terrorists
sponsored by a foreign nation could disable specific sections of our grid
with guns and bombs, to produce a widespread failure. Or if they wanted
to, they could detonate multiple EMP bombs above America, which would
cause the same kind of damage that you'd see with a solar flare. Countries
like Russia and China have demonstrated their ability to sneak submarines
into our waters without being detected, so this sort of attack would likely
stem from their navies.

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Climate Change (But Not the Kind You're Thinking of)
If global temperatures rise to catastrophic levels in the near future, it would
hardly be a black swan event. After all, plenty of scientists and government
officials have been predicting this for decades. If however, the temperature
falls to record levels, it would catch just about everyone off guard.

That's exactly what Professor Valentina Zharkova has predicted. Scientists

have known for over a century now that the sun goes through regular
phases of activity that last roughly 10-12 years. However, they've never
been able to predict the severity of these cycles. Given that the sun has
such a large impact on the climate, having a full understanding of these
cycles would allow us to project long-term climate trends.

Zharkova appears to have cracked this nut. She realized that the sun is
going through more than one cycle of activity, as the inner and outer layers
of our star fluctuate at slightly different rates. When these cycles sync with
each other the sun starts to give us more heat, but when the cycles start to
grow apart, the sun cools down.

So far she's been able to predict solar activity with an incredible 97%
accuracy. But more importantly, if her understanding of the sun holds true
for longer periods of time, she believes that the Earth can expect a mini ice
age by the year 2030. The last time we entered a cooling trend like this was
between the years 1300 and 1850, though the later half of that period was
far more severe. Summers were typically colder and wetter, and left
humanity with shorter growing seasons. This led to a significant increase in
famines, epidemics, and social unrest across Europe. If Professor
Zharkova is right, then we're in for one tough century.

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Biological Warfare
The idea of using germs to purposely inflict damage on a population has
been around for centuries, but biological warfare could take a frightening
turn for the worst in the 21st century. It's widely known that the United
States and the Soviet Union produced a vast arsenal of lethal pathogens,
however a biological attack from a foreign nation probably isn't something
that would happen out of the blue. If it it did, it would most likely be an
accident, and the reason why is simple. If you release a bio-weapon on
your enemies, there's no reason why it won't make it's way back to your
own people. So if bio-weapons are to be used, it would probably happen in
the run up to a nuclear war, where everyone is going to lose anyway.

The real bio-weapons threat faced by the world today won't come from
some advanced military laboratory. It will probably come from some
lunatic's garage. As time goes on, it's becoming cheaper and easier to work
with DNA, and there will come a day when the equipment needed to tinker
with a lethal germ will cost as much as a high end 3D printer does now.
There is already a scientific movement of biohackers who can tinker with
DNA in their homes and businesses. This field of research no longer costs
millions of dollars, requiring advanced degrees. The barrier of entry has
been lowered by a wide margin, and it's still falling.

Imagine if anyone with a shoestring budget was capable of creating a

pathogen that could kill millions of people. That's the world we will live in
very soon, and when the first home-brewed pandemic sweeps across the
globe, no one is going to see it coming.

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Earthquakes and Tsunamis
These disasters are hardly unheard of. Every year you'll hear about some
earthquake that kills tens of thousands of people. While more rare,
tsunamis can wreck entire nations. But where these disasters get really
scary is when they happen in places where they are least expected.

The United States happens to have two of these places. The first is known
as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which is situated between Illinois,
Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. The
last time there was a major incident was between 1811 and 1812, when
several massive earthquakes rocked the region. Since then there have
been plenty of small quakes, but New Madrid tends to produce severe
seismic activity every few hundred years.

In 2011, the U.S. government ran a simulation of what would happen if the
New Madrid Zone shook again like it did in 1812. They estimated that
100,000 people would die, and over 7 million would be displaced. And for
the icing on the cake, there are 15 nuclear plants within the New Madrid
Zone. We may have a Fukushima redux on the Mississippi in the near
future.

The other unexpected disaster zone is the Cascadia Faultline along the
West Coast. This region is especially problematic since it almost never
produces any earthquakes of any size. In fact, the scientific community
wasn't even aware of its existence until 40 years ago. This means that
cities like Portland, Seattle, and Salem haven't been building their cities
with earthquakes in mind. Unfortunately for them, when the Cascadia
Faultline does get around to producing earthquakes, they will be earth-
shattering. They can register upwards of 9.2 on the Richter scale. Only
25% of the buildings in this region stand a chance of surviving this kind of
devastation.

And in addition to the earthquakes, Cascadia could easily cause a 100 foot
tsunami. The most conservative estimates suggest that a Cascadia quake
would cause 13,000 deaths and displace a million people, but those
numbers would be much higher after a tsunami.

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Unexpected Nuclear War
When most of us think about World War Three, we assume that there will
be some kind of warning. We'll hear about troop movements and sporadic
gunfights in eastern Europe, and we'll know that the conflict is brewing. But
there's a very good chance that a nuclear war would be a complete
accident. In fact, there have been many near misses between the U.S. and
Russia, both before and after the Cold War.

One of the most notable accidents occurred on September 26th, 1983. An

officer with the Soviet Air Defense Force by the name of Stanislav Petrov
manned his post in a Soviet bunker just outside of Moscow. His job was to
monitor any potential nuclear strikes that might be headed towards the
Soviet Union. Just after midnight, he received 5 separate alerts, warning
him of an impending attack. Despite everything that he was taught, he
decided that these alerts were false, and didn't pass them up the chain of
command. It would later be discovered that the alerts were caused by
sunlight shining through high altitude clouds before reaching Soviet
satellites.

If he had reported these alerts as an American attack, there's a good

chance that his commanders would have ordered a retaliatory strike
against the U.S. At the time, tensions were high between the two
superpowers, since it was just three weeks after the Soviets had mistakenly
shot down a South Korean Airline, which killed an American Congressman.
This incident is widely regarded as one of the closest calls during the Cold
War, and it's a frightening reminder that the end of the world could happen
at any time, and for really stupid reasons.

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Cyber Attack
As a rule of thumb, the more complicated a system becomes, the more
vulnerable it is to sabotage. That principle applies to computers more than
anything else in the modern world. Our computers are not only incredibly
sophisticated, but so are the networks that connect them all together. This
makes them ripe for exploitation by hackers.

Which also means that just about everything in the modern world is
vulnerable since we've spent the last 30 years applying computers to every
aspect of our lives. And unlike some disasters, a cyber attack will come
without warning. One day you may wake up to find that the stock exchange
has stopped for no apparent reason, or perhaps your power has gone out.
Maybe you won't even be able to connect to the Internet. You won't find out
what caused the problem until after it's fixed and the news informs you that
a cyber attack just occurred.

But that's assuming it will be fixed. A cyber attack on a power plant could
cause transformers to blow, which could take several years to repair.
Hacker's could cause digital water meters to report misleading numbers,
thus leading the water company to over-pressurize the water mains and
cause them to burst. The Internet itself is not immune. It's possible that at
some point in the future the encryption protocols that underlie the Internet
could be hacked. This would make every Internet transaction about as safe
as visiting the ATM after midnight, and destroy everything that makes the
Internet profitable for so many companies. And if there is ever a war
between the U.S. and any other high tech nation, you can expect to see our
military forces face communication failures, hacked drones, and missiles
that don't launch (or perhaps they will launch, but towards the wrong side).

To date, the worst thing most of us have seen, is leaked emails and data
from websites that have been hacked. In the future however, cyber attacks
are going to be downright devastating for entire nations.

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Civil War
Most people are genuinely surprised when a civil war occurs in their
country, which is interesting because tensions are often simmering
between rival groups for generations before the war occurs. In many cases,
these wars are started despite the fact that the majority of the population
doesn't want a war. Most people just want to live their lives, and they're
willing to live peacefully with people that they disagree with.

The reason why these wars often come out of nowhere, is that they are
often started by small groups of people with extreme ideologies. They start
the fuse by fighting with each other, but eventually drag everyone else
down with them. Imagine if you lived in an ethnically diverse country where
everyone seems to be getting along. There may be some tensions, but
nobody is killing each other. In fact, this hypothetical society may have
progressed to the point where people of different races can intermarry
without facing any consequences.

Then one day you might hear about some racially obsessed terror group
killing members of a different race. Then you hear that the extremists from
the other side reciprocated with some of their own killings. As they go back
and forth, the casualties mount, many of whom are collateral. Senseless
murder has a tendency to produce more extremists as the family members
of the slain take sides. As you can imagine, this process might continue
until everyone has to take a side, and then you have a full-blown race war
in the making. Even moderates have to get involved because they see
members of their own side constantly getting killed, and they feel that they
have to defend themselves.

Of course, it doesn't always go down that way, but that's an example of

how a civil war can pop up unexpectedly. All it needs are the right
conditions. A poor economy can make desperate people project their
problems on other groups, and a crumbling system of law and order
ensures that the initial extremists can get away with their crimes. And
obviously it doesn't need to be race based. Civil wars can be fought over
political and religious grievances as well. It helps if one side has a history of
being persecuted, or if another side has more wealth or holds a
disproportionate number of political positions. All it takes is for one side to
think that they're not getting what they deserve from society, or if they think

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they're going to lose their position in society.

Now ask yourself, does this sound like America? We are one of the most
ethnically diverse nations on the planet, with a wide variety of religions,
cultures, languages, and political beliefs, many of whom have been
persecuted in the past and still don't feel like they're getting a fair shake.
And we are massive too, with more than 300 million people across many
different regions. Historically speaking, nations of this size and scope rarely
stay that way for long.

And if war won't come from these difference, a fight between the
government and the people could easily arise, which brings me to the next
topic.

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Martial Law
Martial law could be triggered by many of the scenarios I listed above.
That's why our government has the option to put troops on the streets.
When a disaster strikes with such severity that the police can no longer
enforce law and order, the military can be called up to fill in the gap.
However, that doesn't mean that the government won't take advantage of
the situation, and use the military to exert more control over the population.

Governments are often predatory in nature, and for them, every crisis is
just an opportunity for them to exploit. When people's lives are in danger,
they're either much more willing to accept tyranny, or they are unable to
resist it. So after any event that you read about in this report, you have to
be prepared for what might happen afterwards, which includes the
government's response to that event.

Obviously, it wouldn't be a black swan unless there was some degree of

unpredictability involved. In this case, you might not know the true nature of
a martial law order, until it's too late. Most of the time the government will
make a genuine attempt to restore order, but if the disaster causes enough
chaos, they seize the opportunity to make permanent changes in society.

They may use the crisis to confiscate wealth, restrict travel, conduct door to
door gun confiscations (which happened after Hurricane Katrina by the
way), or they may try to do a round-up of known dissidents and critics of
the government. As surprising as it may sound, both the U.S. and Canada
have had plans to round up thousands of subversive citizens at one point
or another. Given the extent of the NSA's spying abilities, I'd imagine that
their current lists are much larger.

Aside from many of the disasters that could spawn a martial law takeover,
there's also a chance that this country could be locked down by way of a
coup d'etat. This is a possibility that the vast majority of Americans would
never consider, but it has some merit. Because we have one of the largest
and most expensive militaries on the planet, the companies that supply our
armed forces (that is, the military-industrial complex) wield a lot of power in
Washington. It's also important to remember that whenever there is a poll
conducted on the average American's opinion on various institutions, the
U.S. military always comes out on top.

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The latest gallup poll from June of 2015, found that 72% of Americans have
a lot of confidence in the military. By contrast, the presidency held 33%
while Congress had just 8%. Under the right conditions, I have no doubt
that a majority of Americans would be willing to let the military take over our
government. However, if the military takes control, they may not do it with
ordinary soldiers.

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AI Assault
In July of 2015, billionaire Elon Musk and esteemed physicist Stephen
Hawking came together with dozens of big names in the tech world, to sign
an open letter to the U.N. In it, they made a call to ban autonomous
weapons before they reach the battlefield, and prevent an AI arms race.
They made a point to distinguish current human guided weapons like
drones and cruise missiles, from the fully automated war machines that are
sure to make an appearance in the 21st century.

Much like the invention of the atomic bomb, automated weapons are an
existential threat to humanity. Their proliferation could one day allow very
few people to wield inordinate power over their fellow humans. This is
precisely why the governments of the world are so interested in this
technology. It's not just about finding unique ways to fight foreign enemies.
An army of robots will always follow your orders, whereas a human army
has to be convinced to do its job. That martial law scenario I described
before may not end well for political elites if their soldiers don't want to
enslave their fellow Americans, so they want to replace their soldiers with
machines that will never question their desires.

And due to the secretive nature of their research, we probably realize that
they've arrived on the scene until it's too late. Government funded
organizations like Boston Dynamics and DARPA have been working on
these machine, and every now and then they like to show videos of their
progress to the public, but they tend to downplay their military applications
and claim that these robots will be used for disaster relief. In reality, they
are paving the way for the world's first automated killing machines.

When the military finally uses these machines, it will be a shocking, game-
changing event that would be on par with the invention of gunpowder, and
it will change the face of warfare for centuries to come.

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Conclusion
Do you remember the story about the turkey and the Farmer? Despite
being a seemingly perfect example of a black swan, it also falls short of
being a perfect example in one crucial way. The strictest definition of a
black swan holds that the event must come as a shock to everyone
involved. However, this doesn't apply to the turkey story. After all, the
farmer knew all along that the turkey was going to be butchered.

The story reveals that the nature of black swans can be a matter of
perspective. For most people, they are ruthless and shocking events that
can change everything about their lives at a moment's notice, but for those
who are aware of these events ahead of time, they don't pose much of a
threat.

At the beginning of this report, I asked you to consider the possibility that
you are the turkey, and that you have to find out who the farmer is. Well,
look no further than your own government. They're very busy preparing for
economic collapse, civil unrest, natural disasters, and who are we kidding,
they've been prepared for martial law and nuclear war for decades.
Meanwhile, the financial and political elites of the world have been rushing
to buy up property in remote areas and build bunkers and safe houses.

The most wealthy and powerful people in the world are scared. They are
the farmers of the world, and they are privy to events that we could never
dream of. They know that something devastating is on the horizon, and
they're preparing for it. You should too, if you don't want to be a turkey.

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Mac Slavo and SHTFplan.com

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