This guy has got it all wrong. These guys have everything to win and nothing to lose. They are not taking any risks.
What is more worth than life?
Risk Everything (2007)
71–80 of 142 posts
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#72Literal survivorship bias, for both parties involved in the story.
Yes. He'd have a lot harder time writing this article if he'd gone to investigate a raft full of people dead from dehydration.
Or if he'd been raided by pirates, which he seems to suggest is a common enough occurrence to make the general advice "don't stop".
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(If death truly had negative infinity utility, it would overpower the benefit of everything and we couldn't do anything.) It's true death has utility in an economic sense, as one needs not look further than the funeral/death care industry to find utility. But if we are talking about death of the self, the negative infinite utility claim seems more convincing than the non-negative-infinite one. In fact, negative infi…
I am talking about death of the self. When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever, because negative infinity times small probability plus positive fini…
Crossing the street ... is also a study in how rules change. A distractible American(-Brazilian) arriving in the UK will have a few heart-stopping moments when they look left, and on the verge stepping into the street, take that precautionary glance right and realize they did it wrong.
The "West" is possibly on the verge of some large rule changes.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#74I had to do this when young... I was homeless, rough sleeping. Honestly... it's a terrible piece of advice. Those risking everything have no other choice. If you're reading this person's blog post, if you're on HN... you probably have a choice, and you probably aren't "risking everything". I cannot imagine anyone on here actually choosing to potentially have nothing at all, no network, no funds, no assets, no nothing…
Whenever that comment comes up I feel the urge to just post the wiki entry for the Kelly criterion. If you don't have as many resources as your competitors in the market, reduce your bet size!!! Yes, that may mean you cannot challenge Mark Zuckerberg for yacht size just yet, but it will also mean that you can try again if you fail. Match your ambition to your means. Super risky plans with no room for errors make for great movies, but are terrible ideas in real life.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#75A reminder that this story plays out dozens of times every day in the Mediterranean right now. 42,549 irregular border crossings were reported in July 2022 on the Central Mediterranean route [1]. The number of those who drowned will never be known. Many of these Africans who dare to cross the sea have already travelled for weeks or months and survived the Sahara. They are not celebrated as risktakers, though. Unlike…
I'm sure a lot of NGOs do.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#76A reminder that this story plays out dozens of times every day in the Mediterranean right now. 42,549 irregular border crossings were reported in July 2022 on the Central Mediterranean route [1]. The number of those who drowned will never be known. Many of these Africans who dare to cross the sea have already travelled for weeks or months and survived the Sahara. They are not celebrated as risktakers, though. Unlike…
> Unlike this article, nobody sings odes to the boldness, inventiveness, motivation, honor and leadership qualities of the African migrant. Maybe they should.
It's a bit odd that choice of traits to ascribe to economic migrants, which could be better describe the African entrepreneurs who chose to stay and improve their home community.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#77This guy has got it all wrong. These guys have everything to win and nothing to lose. They are not taking any risks.
What is more worth than life?
Your life is as valuable as the freedoms and things you can access. If you are living in Cuba with no money, no freedoms and no prospects; your life is worth very little to nothing. It's a no-brainer to jump on a boat and move somewhere else where your life value can increase.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#78I take objection to this line: > When I share this story with other sailors, they are universally aghast that we helped these refugees. I wonder what kind of sailors they are conversing with, if at all.
I have a far less interesting and infinitely less daring story (but that is my response to the author's contention, "risk everything" and your question "why people are aghast"). When I was young in my mid 20's, I've just moved to a hip and hipster neighborhood of a college town lively with grad students, artists and musicians and comics; But I was just a lonely and geeky guy lookin' to fit in and meet and make new fr…
This story was told in 2007. A used entry level marine GPS was in the $700 range at that time. Current map was $200 extra. In the boondocks there often isn't much price difference between used and new, so the price could have been in the $1000s also.
A used long-range radio could be cheaper, but not that much.
Both could easily be a year's earnings.
Satellite Phone was in the $10000s.
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#79A reminder that this story plays out dozens of times every day in the Mediterranean right now. 42,549 irregular border crossings were reported in July 2022 on the Central Mediterranean route [1]. The number of those who drowned will never be known. Many of these Africans who dare to cross the sea have already travelled for weeks or months and survived the Sahara. They are not celebrated as risktakers, though. Unlike…
>Unlike this article, nobody sings odes to the boldness, inventiveness, motivation, honor and leadership qualities of the African migrant. Maybe they should.
No, they shouldn't. Smuggling migrants into Europe is a business these days. The professional smugglers get paid and can provide transportation at every step of the journey. The most cynical step in this process is creating deliberate distress at sea in order to be picked up by people with "white saviour" mentality who knew in advance in which area the distress would happen and then transport those people from the Libyan coast all the way to Italy or Spain to drop them off there and now make the migrants Europe's problem[1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-italian-leade...
Re: Risk Everything (2007)
#80It's a nice story but imo would be better without the forced lesson at the end. As most here have pointed out, it's just survivorship bias with some poetic phrasing.
As for taking risks: I don't think I'd lose single utilon if I never hear another affluent ex-entrepreneur talk about the importance of taking risks. I've been broke before, I've nearly missed rent on several occasions, and none of those times had me working at my baseline competence, let alone at my peak. If those people do better at those circumstances, they must have some quirk that I'm missing.
In practice I perform at my best when I'm emotionally invested but don't really care about the outcome. My two successful businesses were both side gigs I started for fun that scaled well when I noticed that I had greatly underestimated demand. I didn't risk anything for either of those beyond maybe a hundred hours of initial setting up time.