The sense of risk as a movable reference point

[cycle tramp]

Whilst I had the page showing I might as well pop it here too

https://www.threebeans.org/zenga-bros

If you scroll down to 'tall bikes will save the world' which is a 26 minute film, you'll see people riding tall bikes that they have made themselves, without helmets and deliberately crashing into things...

..an illustration of the idea that risk, and the sense of risk isn't a fixed point but rather moves as the unfamiliar becomes the familiar....

[pjclinch]

Yup.
If you've not read John Adams' "Risk" yet, do have a look.
It's got plenty of examples to show how an engineering-led approach to risk tends to get undermined by people being, well, people... It's out of print but easy enough to find second hand and there's a free download from the author at http://www.john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/ ... K-BOOK.pdf

Pete.

[mattsccm]

It does move and it can be both ways. In many respects society avoids and even disapproves of risk. Look at hill walking /climbing. Heaven forbid you don't carry a phone that isn't traceable. Helmets on cycles are the same.
Happily there are some people still pushing back, be it solo cycling to strange places or free solo climbing where a match stick width hold is the biggest in thousands of feet.
Risk benefit is a trendy phrase in what is tackily known as Forest School for primary school kids where you allow them to get dirty! Or even handle a knife or light a fire.
There are signs that humanity hasn't completely given in to the nanny state.

[pjclinch]

It does move and it can be both ways. In many respects society avoids and even disapproves of risk. Look at hill walking /climbing. Heaven forbid you don't carry a phone that isn't traceable. Helmets on cycles are the same.
Happily there are some people still pushing back, be it solo cycling to strange places or free solo climbing where a match stick width hold is the biggest in thousands of feet.
Risk benefit is a trendy phrase in what is tackily known as Forest School for primary school kids where you allow them to get dirty! Or even handle a knife or light a fire.
There are signs that humanity hasn't completely given in to the nanny state.

Risk/benefit is more than a trendy phrase, it's a formal method of risk assessment and a really good thing about it is that where it's used it's typically displacing the idea that all risk must be removed.
A lot of the problem with risk assessment/management is people often don't understand it and err on the side of ludicrous over-caution. The HSE actually spend a fair bit of energy trying to stop this, e.g., https://www.hse.gov.uk/services/educati ... common.htm.
RA is mostly having a think and writing down your conclusions, formalising that you've actually had a think: it's not the mountain of red tape that is widely envisioned.

We've got pretty bad, but nowhere near as bad as the Merkens! Have a look at e.g. https://www.freerangekids.com/its-still ... ht-states/, though happily that shows glimmers of sanity coming out of the fog.

Pete.

[re_cycler]

It does move and it can be both ways. In many respects society avoids and even disapproves of risk.

Are there any models for what drives society to become increasingly risk adverse or is it just an ongoing amplification and echoing of the individual positions ?

[pjclinch]

It does move and it can be both ways. In many respects society avoids and even disapproves of risk.

Are there any models for what drives society to become increasingly risk adverse or is it just an ongoing amplification and echoing of the individual positions ?

Tim Gill's "No Fear" (free download at https://timrgill.files.wordpress.com/20 ... -12-07.pdf) discusses this a bit, though it doesn't have a formal model.
It's a fairly short and interesting read in any case, illustrating how risk aversion is a problem in our society.

Pete.

[Mike Sales]

Risk is inseperable from living. Absolute safety is unattainable. Balancing risk and reward is a faculty of every animal, and the very essence of autonomy. Exercising that judgement is a pleasure to many. The balance point changes from individual to individual, and even from time to time in the same individual.

[Nearholmer]

Are there any models for what drives society to become increasingly risk adverse or is it just an ongoing amplification and echoing of the individual positions ?

There’s an entire stack of academic literature on risk perception and risk appetite at individual and societal levels.

Its been a bit of a while since I was immersed in this stuff, so I can’t cite individual papers, but there seems to be fairly general agreement that, at a societal level, one of the biggest influences on risk appetite is the level of exposure to unavoidable risks. In a society where exposure to risks from causes like infant mortality, war, famine, natural disasters, incurable diseases in adulthood etc are very high, then “life is cheap” in respect of avoidable risks. In a society like ours where, thankfully at the moment, exposure to unavoidable risk is very low, then life is priced very high, we will spend a lot to avoid death/injury.

Effectively, and very, very roughly, what are to all intents and purposes unavoidable risks set “the waterline”, and people don’t like the avoidable ones “poking up above the waterline”.

As a society, we don’t have this perfectly set, agreed, or calibrated though, and IMO there is often a mismatch between the “societal wants” of individuals of different ages, for instance, because people seem to get “risk calibrated” in childhood or adolescence, and the waterline of unavoidable risks in “the west” fell a lot in a short time post-WW2.

There also seems to be an element of selfishness in it, where people, not surprisingly, want the risks to them individually reduced, while simultaneously suggesting that others should accept more risk. The caricature of the grumpy old pensioner wanting society to spend endlessly on medical care for the over eighties, so that they can live to an age undreamed of by their parents, while spitting venom at “generation snowflake” for not accepting levels of avoidable risk that were common in 1953 isn’t all that wide of the mark, for instance.

[Mike Sales]

People feel differently about risks they choose to accept for themselves and those risks imposed on them by others.

[Nearholmer]

That too.

[re_cycler]

There also seems to be an element of selfishness in it, where people, not surprisingly, want the risks to them individually reduced, while simultaneously suggesting that others should accept more risk. The caricature of the grumpy old pensioner wanting society to spend endlessly on medical care for the over eighties, so that they can live to an age undreamed of by their parents, while spitting venom at “generation snowflake” for not accepting levels of avoidable risk that were common in 1953 isn’t all that wide of the mark, for instance.

I think this is what I was questioning, selfishness seems to be reflected less at the society level suggesting that society derives other benefits to being risk adverse. But I'll take a read of some of the literature.

Tim Gill's "No Fear" (free download at https://timrgill.files.wordpress.com/20 ... -12-07.pdf) discusses this a bit, though it doesn't have a formal model.
It's a fairly short and interesting read in any case, illustrating how risk aversion is a problem in our society.

Pete.

Thank you for the link and also the previous one.

[Mike Sales]

Yup.
If you've not read John Adams' "Risk" yet, do have a look.
It's got plenty of examples to show how an engineering-led approach to risk tends to get undermined by people being, well, people... It's out of print but easy enough to find second hand and there's a free download from the author at http://www.john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/ ... K-BOOK.pdf

Pete.

I second this recommendation.
I lent my first copy to a friend who, when reading in the bath, dropped it in the water. He dried it out but I told him to keep it and bought another copy.