the only difference is which we see as the most likely on a descending scale of probabilities
I cannot tell you how pleased and relieved I am that we've cleared up this misunderstanding. I'm sorry to say that I really thought you didn't recognize that there are differences in both probability and consequence. As you know, I'm new to the thread. So much of what you've been posting recently lead me to infer otherwise.
As I reflect on it, it was your tendency to throw the proverbial kitchen sink into every post. Take our most recent transaction, for example. The subject was the effect of an IRS computer failure. I mentioned, by way of comparison only, the business of the Russian nukes. Your reply zeroed in on the example rather than the main point and shot back a bunch of additional risks in the same family as my example. This "piling on" of extraneous risks into every argument leaves the impression that you aren't making distinctions. There's also a certain strident quality in the tone of your posts.
The reason that I've been making all these "risk assessment 101" posts is that yours is one of the stronger voices on the thread and I'm concerned that it scares people. When people are overwhelmed with a mountain of catastrophic risks, they either panic or put their heads in the sand. I think that panic is one of the greatest risks to all of us, and panic is a risk that we, the people, have some control over.
I realize that you have been studying these issues comprehensively for a long time. I have focused on only those that affect me, directly or indirectly. As a number of people have said, we are each in a different situation. One difference between yours and mine is that you seem determined to survive an apocalypse and to do so with some comfort. I'd just as soon not be around in a post-apocalyptic world and I can make do without a lot of comfort for a reasonable period of time. So I haven't studied carefully or ranked ordered any of the most catastrophic risks nor studied ways to be comfortable for an extended period of bumps, merely to survive them. That's part of why I'm comfortable with a river-water approach to survival planning.
Since our interests and research efforts are so disparate, I cannot pose a comprehensive counterpoint to your list of risks as you suggested. |
