“It might not happen,” Fricker said. “But if there’s a chance that it could happen, then shouldn’t you involve that in your planning? If you’re hosting a picnic and it might rain, you don’t necessarily move the whole event, but you probably do make a Plan B. If you’re planning a city … you might as well keep this in the back of your mind.”OK. I'll pencil in a contingency plan for massive sea-level rise, like moving to a mountaintop in western North Carolina.
Scary Scary Less Likely
But you should still be scared, says The Atlantic.
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8 comments:
What's the Expected Value of the outcome?
I'm not planning for a meteor strike, either. Or for the next Ice Age to occur suddenly, even though both have occurred in the past.
And I was never frightened of a sea level rise. For one thing, the rise would only inconvenience coastal populations, there'd be no serious threat either to them or to the world's population. For another, at the temperatures associated with sea level rise, life is lush.
Eric Hines
There's a chance that a terrorist will decide that our experiment's headquarters is a soft but very visible target. The Atlantic will therefore happily encourage me to arm up for my daily commute. Right? Or am I only supposed to consider "approved" threats in my planning?
Risk is assessed on likelihood, severity, and time-frame.
Plus ways, if any, to mitigate it.
Humans are poor at this.
I have watched guys who smoke a pack a day moan about the dangers of heating up lunch in a microwave.
Been at meetings where the focus was on safety glasses when the week before a 1 1/2" cable snapped and sent a ship hurtling down the ways.
low probability, low severity- don't waste time worrying.
Low probability, high severity, be careful, if it makes any difference. Meteor impact is in this category- nothing we can do, what, me worry?
High probability, high severity, be very careful.
High probability , high severity, little time to react, be very very careful.
There is a term in economics that eludes me, but paraphrased it is the fact the same money can't be spent on two things, so a choice has to be made- similar logic can be applied to many choices. Spend the effort on something of little import, and it cannot be spent on something that will realize far greater gains. Spinner hubcaps or new radials?
Making a list of all the oddball Eco-Nonsense laws puts most firmly in the wasted effort category. Near me is a dilapidated house, rotting into the ground, cupboards still filled with household chemicals and an abandoned well probably sucking surface contamination down to the water table, and what does the county do? Ban plastic bags, that's what.
Sometimes I think public officials should be incarcerated so they can do no harm, until they can explain the Law of Unintended Consequences, and the Law of Diminishing Returns.
"There is a term in economics that eludes me, but paraphrased it is the fact the same money can't be spent on two things, so a choice has to be made..."
The term you are thinking of is "opportunity cost." If I choose to move to the mountain, I deprive myself of a lifetime spent by the seashore, unless I am rich enough to afford both homes and the travel between them. And even if I am so rich as that, the resources I spend on that aren't available for the other things I might do instead.
It's an important concept, I agree.
I buy insurance, but only if the premium isn't fairly certain to cost more than the loss. These guys act like the cost of planning for a sea-level rise that may never happen is zero.
What do they teach them in these schools?
Grim, you could bring the mountain to the seashore. Or simply wait: our Betters keep assuring us that the seashore is coming to the mountain.
I buy insurance....
I don't, except to the extent Government forces me to. I like the odds the insurers are betting that they won't have to pay off. Betting against the house always is a bad bet, with a negative Expected Value.
Eric Hines
I buy good life insurance. I think I’m probably living a far more dangerous life than the actuaries are calculating. If not, I’m letting myself down.
"If I choose to move to the mountain, I deprive myself of a lifetime spent by the seashore"
The fact that I can, within less than an hour (maybe thirty minutes if traffic is light) go either to the beach, or to genuine Alpine terrain over 5k feet is one of the things keeping me here in L.A., fwiw.
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