A younger cousin is expecting a child. I called to congratulate him. He asked if we were being safe. “I ride motorcycles for fun,” I told him.
Philosophy is the base human discipline not only because it happened to give rise to all the others, but also because it is the discipline for determining what is best in life.
Safety ain’t it.
Playing it safe, ain't. Quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI do play the odds and assess the expected payoffs against their expected costs (in statistics, those are often referred to as Expectations or Expected Values). 'Course, my view of payoffs might differ from others'. And my pain threshold might differ from others'.
Eric Hines
I can think of several conditions under which pursuing assured destruction was the best path. Sometimes you hold the line, though such resistance is sure to kill you, because it is right and best to do.
ReplyDeleteSure--extreme examples of the expected payoff-cost tradeoff. One that comes to mind is the Alamo, for whom the direct payoff went to folks other than those paying the cost.
ReplyDeleteThere are less extreme examples, too--a policy of paying forward: helping someone with the expectation, stated or not, that they'll repay by helping someone else.
And there's riding motorcycles for fun and playing poker for college book money.
Eric Hines
I play it safe by letting other people poke the swarm first, to see what happens, then learn from their reactions.
ReplyDeleteThe one known in scripture as Peter would understand.