Dirty Swans – pros and cons

It is understood that recognition of any coming wild cards (Black Swans) is similar to prediction of the future and can be extremely profited by a person or organization that are able to make such recognition. Investors of any kind place their bets (time and money) on different innovations in a desperate hope that the innovations will revolutionize our lives, economy or science. If the changes made by the innovations are not in a scale to dramatically change our world, well, these innovations can be considered as Grey Swans.

Then we have innovations which were expected to be very important however their benefits and advantages (if any) became very modest. We have coined the name for these innovations: Dirty Swans. As a very good example of a Dirty Swan is a nanotechnology (inclusive nanomedicine, nanobiotechnology, bionanotechnology and similar nanoscience). There is a hope among investors, politicians and scientists that nanotechnology will provide unique solutions for existing problems and will radically change the World we are living in. I would be also very enthusiastic in this issue, however it is very remarkable that nanotechnology is not consistent ontologically – there is no any real scientific (even sci-fi’s) background for these positive expectations.

It is obvious that Dirty Swans slow down the progress by attracting valuable resources as time, money and PR from another, more ontologically consistent and promising fields of research. And the main beneficiaries of the Dirty Swans are:

1.       Big Pharma – Dirty Swans prevent  immaterial assets of Big Pharma from devaluation caused by new research, discoveries and products

2.       Worlds Economy – may be paradoxically, but a Dirty Swan (as well as Grey and really Black Swan) gives the possibility to pump in the Swan’s development a lot of money and the money being consumed stimulates the extensive evolution of the economy.

3.       Political elite – it is profited through political control over the situation.

Who stays on the opposite side? Who are beneficiaries of a Black Swan?

1.                        Big Pharma’s “conter-elite”. In the pharmaceutical industry always exist some companies who would like to challenge those who are sitting on the top, and any Black Swan is a perfect weapon in a war between pharmaceutical competitors.

2.                        Political counter-elite – it can take leading positions only through radical changes in the society and economy.

What is the final verdict? There is nothing wrong with the existence of Black or Dirties Swans, - the critical question is: “Which side you are playing for?”