Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress • Hacker News Board

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#131

Post by danaris » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #105

luciusdomitius wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, externalities must indeed be settled. However, leaded petrol (same chap also invented freon (!) btw - talk about being unlucky :D) cannot really be handled by a market as it is in its nature a bodily harm and there is the criminal code for that. Freon would be a much more interesting example as it hurts societies in the long-term and not individuals in the short.

Unfortunately governments can also fail in settling externalities. For example, making it hard to extract oil domestically only shifts production to other countries, which are often bad authoritarian states. Better way is to tax consumption, but that has never been popular in US.

Taxing consumption is inherently regressive. By its nature, it places a disproportionate amount of the burden on those least able to pay for it.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#132

Post by rapind » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #66

throwawaymaths wrote: post #22

> broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility" How about artificially low interest rates? An interest rate is exactly the coordination between risk and time, with a low interest rate you're subsidizing stupidity and wastefulness, and with its concommittant inflation you're forcing people into making those investments to stay afloat. Maybe if we weren't goosing the interest rate low…

Your last sentence seems to suggest that if we just let the free market do what it does, everything would be fixed and we wouldn't have any environmental problems. Are you not aware of the concept of externalities? How do you, for example, explain the fact that leaded gasoline was only replaced with non-leaded gasoline when "meddling" made it illegal?

That’s not how I read his post. Regardless you can mark me down as someone who doesn’t want the government trying to “goose” our economy through increasingly complex methods, like artificially low interest rates, corporate welfare, etc.

I do however fully support reasonable regulations (consequences for externalities), building infrastructure, universal aid and healthcare programs, etc.

Basically bad decisions like over borrowing, and bad lending, should be punished (not bailed out or you encourage bad decisions). Financial decisions that shift cost to others (externalities like dumping chemicals into a river) should also be punished. At the same time a safety net can be developed (cheap housing, food, or even UBI) to prevent the most devastating individual consequences (especially those you may not even be responsible for). That’s my ideal at least.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#133

Post by fleddr » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

"The GAR2022 blames these disasters on a broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” which leads to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and put people in danger."

Optimism? I'd say it's apathy. Doomsday reports, also very correct and alarming ones, have lost their effect. People have become numb, pessimistic and just assume or even accept that everything is going to shit. They feel powerless to do anything about it, or are too occupied with their own economic relevance.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#134

Post by jmyeet » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #104

jmyeet wrote: post #95

Another perspective: humanity's biggest problem is our inability to understand the exponential function [1]. As for climate change, the only way that ends is after massive death and destruction or due to economics (specifically: carbon emission sources get replaced because they're cheaper). It's too large, expensive and long-term for people to care otherwise. The pandemic should've dispelled any notions you may have…

Are you suggesting that the only way to avoid anthropogenic climate change is a massive die off humans?

Isn't it obvious?

On 9/11 ~3500 people died. During the pandemic that many people were dying of Covid every day. In 2 years over 1 million Americans have died of Covid. 9/11 sparked 20 years of wars (that we lost) and trillions of dollars gone, not to mention the hundreds of thousands or millions we killed directly or indirectly in the process.

But the pandemic response? Slave muzzles [1] and an incredibly safe vaccine could've saved millions of people worldwide. Minor inconvenience, basically.

I mean look at how people are upset how gas is more expensive now. Do you really think people collectively will subject themselves to something similar long-term so decades from now the Earth might be slightly cooler than it's otherwise going to be? No shot.

[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-qanon-rode-pandem...

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#135

Post by logicchains » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

White_Wolf wrote: post #127

bluGill wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor hours fails because some jobs need more incentive to get into. Why would I study in school when I could make just as much doing basic unskilled labor, with careful savings the unskilled laborer can retire earlier since he starts sooner (also likely doesn't have to pay off student debt)

You'd have to implement a coeficient based on the average time needed to aquire said skill for a person with average IQ and EQ, performance, number of base skills required to learn said skill, so on. This formula would be a bit more complex than this but you get the jist of it. It wouldn't be impossible to quantify it for all but edge cases.

>It wouldn't be impossible to quantify it for all but edge cases.

It would be impossible to quantify it because there's no objective measure of value. The current system allows value to be quantified by people's revealed preferences: the jobs people are willing to pay more for get paid higher. If there's no market for labor then there's no revealed preferences and it's impossible to know which jobs are creating more value for people (only what jobs are creating more value by some bureaucrats personal subjective measure of value).

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#136

Post by lapcat » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #18

Right now, we have a host of problems, almost all of them manmade, but no, they're not related to the state of nature or even mankind's influence on nature. We are on the brink of world war three and the UN's only reason for existing is to prevent that from happening again, but instead of doing its job it's playing propaganda games with the word 'disaster' to make you think a global carbon tax is the solution to all…

> We are on the brink of world war three and the UN's only reason for existing is to prevent that from happening again, but instead of doing its job

What do you think the UN is supposed to do when one of the permanent members of the Security Council with veto power decides to go to war?

The foundation of the UN depended crucially on the temporary alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II. This alliance quickly fell apart though, leading to the long "Cold War", which arguably still exists, apart from a short lull in the 1990s. When the US and Russia are at odds, it's almost impossible for the UN to perform its function. The veto power of the permanent Security Council members ensures that the UN has no enforcement mechanism over those individual nations. This was by design of the founding nations: the United States and Soviet Union never gave the United Nations the power to constrain the United States and Soviet Union.

Having said that, World War III not inevitable. There were only 20 years between WW1 and WW2, while we've gone more than 75 years since WW2, so maybe the UN has done its job?

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#137

Post by baremetal » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

Adraghast wrote: post #81

Ambolia wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that bad, and a lot of people like to own their own land rather than never get to own anything.

Quoted post unavailable.

He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king."

There are tradeoffs for everything.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#138

Post by luciusdomitius » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #130

galangalalgol wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a "low trust" society. We don't trust our government. Our entire system was in fact designed assuming the axiom that people in power cannot be trusted. People are not confident those tax dollars would be used to offset the externality, as opposed to a pet project. Sadly, our history would seem to make that lack of confidence rational. But, denying our government the power to govern isn't the solution, deman…

Technically the US is a “high trust” society. Meaning we have institutions like rule of law, independent courts, and elections that are trusted by society to facilitate commercial and legal relations between people, rather than personal relationships and kinships. Yes we complain a lot and criticize the government and don’t fully trust our polarized politicians, but a real “low trust” society is a far cry from what w…

This might have been true 10 years ago, but now (just from the wiki examples):

1. More than 40% in US do not believe Biden legitimately won election – poll - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/america-bide...

2. US tax system is not voluntary, but extremely coercive - the IRS is legendary in its blood-houndness and the US is probably the only country in the world that taxes non-resident citizens.

3. Abortion-Rights Protest Targets Homes of Kavanaugh, Roberts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-08/abortion-...

I am not sure if the US could already be classified as a low-trust society (probably not yet), but a strong negative trend is definitely present.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#139

Post by SkyMarshal » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

White_Wolf wrote: post #127

bluGill wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor hours fails because some jobs need more incentive to get into. Why would I study in school when I could make just as much doing basic unskilled labor, with careful savings the unskilled laborer can retire earlier since he starts sooner (also likely doesn't have to pay off student debt)

You'd have to implement a coeficient based on the average time needed to aquire said skill for a person with average IQ and EQ, performance, number of base skills required to learn said skill, so on. This formula would be a bit more complex than this but you get the jist of it. It wouldn't be impossible to quantify it for all but edge cases.

Except those edge cases would likely destroy the whole system. The value of an hour of labor isn’t based on the time it took to acquire the skill, it’s based on the value of the good or service produced to society. Whether it takes a normal person 4 years to acquire that skill, or a genius 4 days, the value is what it’s worth to other people.

That value not only has a very wide range, but also it’s constantly fluctuating. If you try to centrally dictate it, you’ll be constantly getting it wrong, distorting the labor market just as badly as artificially low interest rates distort other aspects of the economy.

Re: Humanity’s broken risk perception is reversing global progress

#140

Post by chii » Mon, May 09, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #39

jolux wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that economic growth is extremely important to developing economies as well. It’s one thing to say we should limit growth, or deprioritize it, or whatever, but in practice this means forcing poor countries to accept lower standards of living. That’s the real trade-off here.

Growth can't continue indefinitely. In fact a lot of growth today is actually fudging the numbers to make them look good.

> Growth can't continue indefinitely.

no it can't continue indefinitely, but there's still a tonne of room left for humans to grow. I dont believe we are near the limit yet. And that's only this planet. There's at least a few more in the solar system, and hopefully, propulsion tech will improve at some point to allow other star systems to be taken over by humans.