Concepts / Risk and surprise
The dragon king.
Not every extreme event is a bigger version of ordinary ones. A dragon king is an extreme that arises from a different process, often when the parts of a system become tightly linked and move together. Because it has its own cause, it may show warning signs.
The term was introduced by the physicist Didier Sornette in 2009. "King" refers to the way the wealth of kings sits far beyond the pattern of their subjects; "dragon" to an animal unlike any other.
How it works
A different kind of extreme.
Most events in a system follow one pattern. A dragon king breaks it, because something in the system itself has changed.
- 01
Ordinary events
Most events follow a regular pattern: small ones are common, large ones rare, all of the same kind.
- 02
Pressures build
Strains accumulate across different parts of the system, often unnoticed.
- 03
Parts lock together
As links tighten, the parts start to behave alike and move in step.
- 04
A system-wide event
One trigger now sets off a change across the whole system, far beyond the usual pattern.
Why it matters
Extremes with a cause of their own.
Taleb's black swans are, by nature, unforeseeable. Sornette argues that many of the most extreme events are different: they grow out of a process that can be observed as it builds, such as rising coupling, growing uniformity or accelerating change. That does not make them easy to predict, but it means the search for warning signs is not hopeless. Try it in the graphic: tighten the links and watch stress even out before the dragon king arrives.
Where it can show up
When a system starts to move as one.
These are general patterns, not findings about any particular party, institution, government or election.
Markets and finance
Bubbles that grow faster and faster can end in crashes far larger than ordinary falls. Much of Sornette's work studies these.
Public mood
When many separate grievances line up, a small trigger can set off change across a whole society.
Organisations
When every part depends on the same assumptions, one failed assumption can bring down the whole.
Networks of information
When everyone reads the same signals and reacts the same way, local shocks can become system-wide.
Warning signs
Signs that a system is nearing a tipping point.
Research on critical transitions points to some common warning signs. None is certain, but together they deserve attention.
- Rising coupling: parts of the system become more dependent on one another.
- Growing uniformity: actors hold the same positions and react in the same way.
- Accelerating change: growth that keeps speeding up, faster than exponential.
- Slower recovery: small shocks take longer and longer to fade.
- Larger swings: fluctuations grow before the system changes state.
Origins and further reading
Where the idea comes from.
The dragon king sits between two other ideas: the black swan, which stresses that extremes cannot be foreseen, and the grey rhino, which stresses that some can be and are ignored.
- Sornette, D. (2009). Dragon-kings, black swans and the prediction of crises. International Journal of Terraspace Science and Engineering, 2(1), 1–18.
- Sornette, D. and Ouillon, G. (2012). Dragon-kings: mechanisms, statistical methods and empirical evidence. European Physical Journal Special Topics, 205(1), 1–26.
- Scheffer, M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W. A., et al. (2009). Early-warning signals for critical transitions. Nature, 461, 53–59.
- Olami, Z., Feder, H. J. S. and Christensen, K. (1992). Self-organized criticality in a continuous, nonconservative cellular automaton modeling earthquakes. Physical Review Letters, 68(8), 1244–1247.
About this concept
A general idea, not a verdict.
This page explains a general concept from political science, economics and the study of risk. It does not describe or assess any particular party, institution, government or election. Related: The black swan and The grey rhino.