121–130 of 156 posts
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Heavy-tailed modeling doesn't reallly matter. There are very few enterprices where preparing for extremely rare events is worth the effort - nuclear power plants, weapons of mass destruction, bio labs working with dangerous organisms, big chemical plants, maybe AI research and big particle accelerators.
the most important of all - your 401k
Just to put the numbers in slightly easier to imagine numbers: imagine ocean waves about 13000 feet or 4 kilometers high. No, I can't really imagine it either. In San Francisco, the tallest building is the Salesforce Tower at 1070ft. The biggest wave would be about 13 times taller than that. I totally have trouble visualizing it, other than just looking up and up and up.
Just to put the numbers in slightly easier to imagine numbers: imagine ocean waves about 13000 feet or 4 kilometers high. No, I can't really imagine it either. In San Francisco, the tallest building is the Salesforce Tower at 1070ft. The biggest wave would be about 13 times taller than that. I totally have trouble visualizing it, other than just looking up and up and up.
It's unlikely that it's the tallest mountain in the universe, though, and a true pity that if the current understanding of physics is correct, and we can not travel faster than the speed of light, no human will ever experience those massive, distant mountains outside our solar system except in images or virtual reality.
Humans didn't exist back then. But taking into account how much destruction and change it did to all life on earth, if this event never happened, would we have still evolved into current humans?
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the most important of all - your 401k
so you buy an index fund or ETF. capture some of the positives if/when they happen, and help mitigate the negatives
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It would save quite a few ocean going ships if this was more appreciated. Those once-in-a-thousand-year-rogue-waves are much more frequent than once in a thousand years. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2006/jul/26/uknews But we're still designing ships as though they only happen once every thousand years because the cargo and the ship are insured and the crews are considered expendable.
Because a few ships a year are expendable for the global economy. Not worth it to try to make every ship less sinkable - e.g. it may decrease the number of annual losses by 50% at the cost of making an average ship 10% more expensive - obviously a bad trade. Some ships will still sink, because of stuff like human errors.
Here[1] is one of the most impressive asteroid impact simulations I have seen, from the Discover Channel's Miracle Planet. [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PENT_hnyO-o
This makes me think that if life comes back after that 6 times, then it must be pretty easy for life to start.
Here[1] is one of the most impressive asteroid impact simulations I have seen, from the Discover Channel's Miracle Planet. [1] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PENT_hnyO-o
In the video, they said an impact like that happened an estimated 6 times and each time, life sprung back. The whole surface was sterilized. This makes me think that if life comes back after that 6 times, then it must be pretty easy for life to start.