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

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

#191

Post by jcadam » Mon, May 09, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

jhugo wrote: post #80

blfr wrote: post #57

I think this is completely backwards. We are not risking enough and the progress has stalled as a result. During the 1880-1950 we were causing massive disasters all around, literally nuking cities. But that period is also where we came up with virtually all of technology that makes the modern world: cars, planes, radio, computers, nuclear power, jet propulsion. Since then (also ~70 years) we have maintained a little…

"Risk" is incredibly broad. The linked article seems quite focused on disaster risk, which in terms of its increase is mostly climate-related. The perceived reduction in progress over decades may have more to do with societal changes in individual risk perception. For example, we were more comfortable with people dying in the name of progress in 1880-1950.

Communist regimes well past that period were quite willing to sacrifice large numbers of people in the name of "progress." But those losses are large enough to be regarded as statistics rather than tragedies...

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

#192

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

luciusdomitius wrote: post #138

SkyMarshal wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Abor…

The US can have lower levels of trust than it previously had while still having levels of trust that significantly exceed the median. This seems to be a popular misunderstanding in the last decade.

I'm not sure if this is the parent's intent, but there's a whole lot of sincere "the US is a third world country" sort of argumentation going around, predicated entirely on observations that the US falls short of certain utopian ideals). "The US should continue to improve" doesn't depend on pretense that the US lags the median for a given category, and I strongly suspect that this sort of rhetoric gives way to the sort of fatalism that prevents societies from progressing ("we can't progress, we're stuck in this miserable system, etc").

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

#193

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

mypastself wrote: post #189

BurningFrog wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your facts. We differ on judgement and/or labelling. Regulations made the sounds engineering solution very costly, in both time and money, so Boeing was forced to do a complex error prone hacky solution to stay within the regulatory constraints. Don't really know what "reductive" means here, but it's probably not good :)

What I meant by reductive is, I feel like laying the blame solely at the feet of regulators oversimplifies the issue. Someone might argue that better enforcement or additional regulation (one that would prevent Boeing from circumventing the law) could have prevented the disaster. If I recall correctly, the Netflix documentary tends to blame capitalism, the free market, and other assorted boogeymen for creating the pe…

I didn't watch the documentary, but I read a fair amount of the coverage at the time.

I don't mind rephrasing "forced" to "incentivized", or believing that Boeing independently did shady and/or criminal things. It usually takes more than one factor to cause a rare disaster.

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

#194

Post by lapcat » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #35

blueflow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let local people decide for themselves what they want to do - use leaded petrol - build fridges using HCFCs - burn trash This stuff had to be forbidden by the government to make it stop. The UN might be some corrupt stuff, but the point of reducing government at all is nonsense. People on their own won't stop doing harmful things if they dont suffer the consequences themself.

So if let's say, Myanmar doesn't stop using CFCs. What's your solution? Send in some Blue Helmets to enforce global law? And what if they start shooting back? You want to send your son or daughter there? And not to mention the politics of rich countries sending soldiers into poor countries to enforce rules. Colonialism 2.0. "It's the developed world's obligations to drag the uncivilized nations into the the 21st cent…

> So if let's say, Myanmar doesn't stop using CFCs. What's your solution? Send in some Blue Helmets to enforce global law?

But this is exactly why UN conspiracy theories are such a joke. The UN hardly ever enforces anything, because they can't. And the few times it does, it's typically US soldiers operating only nominally under the UN.

The UN is a bogeyman for ultranationalists, but it's mostly just issuing advisory guidelines with very little force behind them. It's not a global tyranny.

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

#195

Post by throwaway894345 » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #170

luciusdomitius wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Abor…

Is this getting downvotes because it doesn't speak to or support the question of the level of trust in the US government? Or is it getting downvotes because the politics of the poster are evident, and people are disagreeing with those politics? I am pretty sure the poster and I would disagree very strongly and on many things, but this post would seem to relate directly on the matter discussed. We do have a decreasing…

I can't actually tell what the parent's politics are. "40% of Americans don't believe Biden won the election" seems like a left-leaning talking point while "protests at Kavenaugh's house" seems like a right-leaning talking point. I think it's a good thing that he wasn't transparently political.

I downvoted because the apparent argument ("the US has these imperfections, thus it follows that it ranks low among countries") is a specific incarnation of the enumeration fallacy that is both obvious and frequently employed. If this isn't what the parent intended to communicate, then he can take my downvote as a cue to be clearer in the future. My downvotes are intended as (albeit very low-resolution) constructive criticism, not ill-will or petty disagreement.

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

#196

Post by RC_ITR » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

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…

One of the interesting parts of humanity is that we make artificial frameworks that become so familiar to us it feels “natural”

The entire concept of interest is a human-designed concept (one that some cultures actively reject). To say that interest rates are being “meddled” with is just basically saying “one group of humans is doing one thing that disagrees with how another group of humans do it”

I’d argue that humans in general are awful at understanding time values and interest is a very incomplete solution to that problem. Making that incomplete solution marginally better isn’t going to get us anywhere.

Shame is, I don’t have any better ideas.

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

#197

Post by nonrandomstring » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

offendingsry wrote: post #151

nonrandomstring wrote: post #11

> 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. The most fatal expression I have heard is that "We need to push through". In Digital Vegan I describe this mentality thus: "I feel there is more hope that one can survive a…

> 'Surely I am an idiot, but I remain an optimist that human beings can pull ourselves out of a great collective delusion ' OT: But may i ask if you (reminding me on a fictive guy named "Baron von Münchhausen") do you mean 'optimistic' in terms of: 'You not only have to consume the advertising, feel invited to make our next ads better, write cheering feedback, get in touch with our company ! (without any surplus for…

Maybe this account of optimism with regard to technology will help you [1]. I mainly subscribe to Cory's take here.

[1] https://pat-kane-xcjl.squarespace.com/dailyalternative/2021/...

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

#198

Post by japhib » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #57

I think this is completely backwards. We are not risking enough and the progress has stalled as a result. During the 1880-1950 we were causing massive disasters all around, literally nuking cities. But that period is also where we came up with virtually all of technology that makes the modern world: cars, planes, radio, computers, nuclear power, jet propulsion. Since then (also ~70 years) we have maintained a little…

Did you even read the article?

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

#199

Post by fallingfrog » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

I_DRINK_KOOLAID wrote: post #171

fallingfrog wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you would try listening for a change. You might learn something. Countries like Ethiopia are catching up from being way behind using imported technology, of course they're growing fast. Their population also has recently exploded, which accounts for much of the growth. How do you not see this? "how the US transitioned from being a country of go-getters to being afraid of losing.." This is just pure contempt an…

> Countries like Ethiopia are catching up from being way behind using imported technology And who do you think is doing all the importing? A young guy in his 20s , who is working 14 hours per day for his family import-export company and helping his dad cooking the books to convince the bank to loan them money to get access to such foreign technology. That is to me both a survivor and a risk taker, not an American kid…

[flagged]

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

#200

Post by mort96 » Mon, May 09, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

jonkho wrote: post #178

mort96 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

“everything would be fixed and we wouldn't have any environmental problems.” Ah…age-old gaslight tactic. Using words like “everything” “all” “any” to encapsulate your opponents argument then using a non-sequitor counter-point (leaded gasoline) to argue a tangent point (a point not relating to interest rates).

"How would you deal with externalities such as cars polluting the air with lead?" is a perfectly valid question in response to the claim that "meddling" by governments into the free market is inherently bad. It's neither a non sequitur nor gaslighting.