[extropy-chat] RISKS: hazard comparisons

[Brett Paatsch]

From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>


> ...Presumably everyone with an extropic
> perspective should always be balancing their external risks
> (ranging from infectious diseases to asteroids).

"Always" seems a tad too much to me Robert, but I know where
your coming from I think.

> 'The Great Influenza' and 'Microbial Threats to Health': Virus Alert
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/books/review/14GEWENT.html?pagewanted=prin
t
>
> If you (personally) do not have a "Plan B" with regard to such
> scenarios you are standing at the craps tables in Las Vegas
> rolling the dice.

If I am in Las Vegas right now I'm more confused than I thought ;-)

With regards to risk assessment I'm still working on Plan A, its
real hard to spread risk optimally over a personal life span of
uncertain duration with so many variables and unknowns.

When one is doing risk assessment on a project or on someone else
one can list assumptions explicitly and review them periodically - I find
this harder to do with life span projections which seem to be necessary
for personal risk amortization.

> (As a side note, though I do not have the reference handy there
> seems to have been a panel recommendation as to how to deal
> with asteroids in the U.K. recently that the government has chosen
> to ignore.)

Asteroids are non-partisan and don't differentiate voter preferences
highly in any given electoral period. They aren't lonely phenomenon
in that respect unfortunately.

Regards,
Brett Paatsch